The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was signed into law by then-US president Jimmy Carter on this day 45 years ago, coming into force retroactively on Jan. 1, 1979.
For Taiwan, the law was something of a mixed blessing, as it was necessitated by the severing of formal diplomatic ties between the US and Taiwan in 1979 under Carter, in a process that had started under former US president Richard Nixon and his national security adviser at the time, Henry Kissinger, with the signing of the Shanghai Communique in 1972.
The switch from US diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was a realpolitik move based on aligning strategic interests against the Soviet Union. The US was not leaving behind Taiwan, but hedging its bets by throwing in its lot with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rather than the dictatorial ROC regime of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
This did not help ordinary Taiwanese, who were shocked by the breaking of ties, and with Carter’s subsequent termination of the 1954 US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty in 1979.
Nixon, Kissinger and Carter were perceived in Taiwan as abandoning the nation in favor of communist China. The US Congress had similar reservations. It was in this context that the TRA was born.
The US and China have very different interpretations about the primacy of the TRA over the three communiques signed between 1972 and 1982 by the US and China. For Beijing, the communiques are to be regarded as international treaties and render the contents of the TRA, a domestic US law, in contravention of international law, and invalid. Much of this disagreement has to do with nuances of wording in the text of the communiques, and with the CCP’s intention to distort the meaning for its own benefit. The US is very clear that the TRA has primacy over the three communiques in its dealings with Taiwan.
Of note is the terminology regarding Taiwan’s identity. For the TRA, the ROC ceased to be recognized as of Jan. 1, 1979. After that point, it refers to the “governing authorities on Taiwan,” leaving considerable flexibility at the time and for the future.
It also states that the US’ decision to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC “rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”
Furthermore, it reaffirms the “preservation and enhancement of the human rights of all the people on Taiwan” as US objectives. For today’s democratic Taiwan, this could be seen as a reference to the threat from the PRC. At the time, the situation was more complex, as the “governing authorities on Taiwan,” or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, still maintained martial law up until 1987.
There has been much water under the bridge since then, with US-Taiwan relations, and indeed relations between those two countries and the PRC, shifting significantly as international realities have evolved.
The initial rapprochement between Washington and Beijing has been tested by developments such as China’s massive increase in military spending and the CCP’s increased aggressiveness in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
Through it all, the TRA has served as the framework for US relations with Taiwan and for its dealings with the CCP regarding Taiwan’s status through a constantly evolving international situation.
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