On New Year’s Day, it is customary to reflect on what the coming year might bring and how the past has brought about the current juncture.
Just as Taiwan is preparing itself for what US president-elect Donald Trump’s second term would mean for its economy, national security and the cross-strait “status quo” this year, the passing of former US president Jimmy Carter on Monday at the age of 100 brought back painful memories of his 1978 decision to stop recognizing the Republic of China as the seat of China in favor of the People’s Republic of China.
It is an understatement to say that Taiwan has had a complicated relationship with Carter’s decision. It is also true that Taiwan today is a stronger, freer and more prosperous country than it was then, and it has transformed itself from being governed by an autocratic regime into a vibrant democracy.
The Taipei Times yesterday published an op-ed, “Jimmy Carter’s diplomatic gamble,” by Y. Tony Yang, associate dean at George Washington University, who argued for a positive reassessment of Carter’s decision, taking into account the wider international context in which it was made.
On Taiwan contributor John Tkacik wrote on Oct. 21, to mark the occasion of Carter’s 100th birthday, a column entitled “Reassessing Jimmy Carter’s Derecognition of Taipei,” that the former US president “has not been highly thought of in Taiwan since his 1978 decision to derecognize Taipei.”
Tkacik takes a slightly different tack; he provides a detailed account of the mechanics of the discussions and the diplomatic steps leading up to it, and makes the case that Carter did his utmost to ensure that Taiwan was protected, even though he was obligated to follow a policy direction that was initiated by his predecessor, former US president Richard Nixon, when he signed the Shanghai Communique during his visit with then-US national security adviser Henry Kissinger to Beijing in 1972.
The disregard for Taiwan’s position during that 1972 meeting was criticized in a previous Taipei Times editorial — “Kissinger’s death the end of an era” — on Dec. 5, 2023, which said that Nixon and Kissinger “had trouble seeing beyond the views of Mao [Zedong] (毛澤東) and his enemy Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), and failed to foresee the power of public sentiment and the impact that, over time, the Taiwanese democratic movement would bring.”
Essentially, Tkacik makes the point that Carter was careful that his administration conceded nothing on Taiwan that Nixon and Kissinger had not already given away. Despite pressure from the Chinese side, he insisted on keeping to the wording of the Shanghai Communique that the US government only “acknowledged” Beijing’s position on Taiwan’s status, retained the policy of providing Taiwan with the means to defend itself that would later become enshrined in the Taiwan Relations Act, and also made explicit the US government’s expectations of a settlement of the Taiwan issue through peaceful means.
Even though it was then that Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) and premier Hua Guofeng (華國鋒) refused to pledge a “peaceful liberation of Taiwan,” Carter did force Deng to accept the ambiguous wording that the US “acknowledges” the Chinese position that there is but “one China” and that Taiwan is a part of China, a subtlety that continues to have consequences today.
Taiwanese have always come through however challenging the hand they have been dealt. The coming year would bring its own challenges. These challenges must be addressed head-on, and with dignity and belief in the value of the nation’s democratic achievement.
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