Sun, Aug 26, 2001 page3

• Taiwan's new voice in Washington

  Just as Jesse Helms, one of Taiwan's staunchest allies in Washington, prepares to retire, a new face is emerging as a champion for Taiwan. `Taipei Times' staff reporter in Washington Charles Snyder outlines how Representative Henry Hyde has helped push the Bush administration toward more robust support for Taiwan

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  When Henry J. Hyde took over the chairmanship of the US House International Relations Committee in January, not many people in Washington had a clear feeling for his views on China and Taiwan, or how he would come down on the China issues facing Congress and the Bush administration.

  Now, eight months into his term as chairman and culminating with his speech in Taipei on Friday, both Washington and the world at large are now quite clear on where he stands: He has become one of Washington's most powerful and staunchest supporters of Taiwan, and one of the US capital's most steadfast critics of Beijing.

  

  US Representative Henry Hyde, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, waves to the crowd on Wednesday. Hyde was in Taiwan on a three-day visit last week.

  TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO

  While Hyde had been a member of the international relations panel, he contributed relatively little to its deliberations, having to devote the bulk of his time to his main congressional job -- chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, arguably one of the most demanding seats in Congress.

  It was as judiciary chairman that the Illinois Republican made his name as the man who shepherded the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton through the committee and then the House of Representatives, roundly and repeatedly condemning the former president's peccadillos and deceptive statements to grand juries in ringing moralistic tones.

  Hyde shifted from the domestic to the international arena as a result of a 1994 Republican House leadership decision to limit chairmen to three two-year terms. His six-year term limit came up this year, as did then-international relations chairman Benjamin Gilman of New York.

  Hyde beat out two other candidates to replace Gilman, former Asia subcommittee chairman Douglas Bereuter and Jim Leach of Iowa, who later became the new Asia subcommittee head.

  The initial feeling on Capitol Hill was that Hyde would not be as firm in his anti-China and pro-Taiwan stance as Gilman, who was one of Taiwan's biggest boosters in Congress.

  That feeling vanished quickly when Hyde, in his maiden Asia speech to the Asia Society in March, voiced strong support for a robust arms-sales package to Taiwan, which was on the Bush administration's agenda for the following month. He also said he "would certainly look with interest" on Taiwan's desire for a missile defense shield, which, he said, was justified by China's missile build-up across the Strait.

  While Hyde put himself at odds with the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman by saying Helms' Taiwan Security Enhancement Act would not be needed in view of the large arms sales he expected, he has also moved energetically this year to push legislation favorable to Taiwan.

  When legislation authorizing spending for the State Department for the next two years came to his committee, for instance, he inserted a half-dozen amendments specifically aimed to enhance US commitments to Taiwan.

  One would give Taiwan the status of a "major non-NATO ally" in terms of arms sales and the export of sensitive technology. Another would require the administration to retain its annual arms sales to Taiwan, despite President George W. Bush's announced plans to scrap the annual meeting in favor of year-round case-by-case sales.

  A third would require the sitting administration to consult with Congress on Taiwan's annual arms request and the administration's response.

  Another would require the peaceful settlement of cross-strait relations based on "the assent of the people of Taiwan, and yet another would urge that the American flag be displayed at the American Institute of Taiwan and its director's residence in the same way as it is displayed in all US diplomatic posts.

  Another section in the bill would support Taiwan's participation in international organizations such as the UN.

  While those provisions were absent from the Senate version of the funding bill, Hyde is expected to fight hard for their inclusion in the final bill that emerges from a joint House-Senate conference that must work out differences in the two versions.

  Hyde was born in Chicago to a staunchly liberal Democratic house-hold on April 18, 1924, and grew up as a Democrat. "I thought the sun rose and set on Franklin Roosevelt," he was quoted as saying in a magazine article years ago.

  Nevertheless, as a devout Catholic who was educated in parochial schools, he soon became a firm anti-communist and later broke with the Democrats when he began to consider them soft on communism. It was in that period when his commitment to Taiwan took shape.

  "Although he voted for Truman in 1948," a lengthy 1994 profile on Hyde in the magazine Insight on the News noted, "Hyde was drifting to the right."

  At the time, though, Hyde confined his political activities to writing letters to the editors of influential newspapers.

  Long-time associate Frank Sullivan, a former (Chicago) Sun-Times reporter and press secretary to the late Chicago (Democratic) Mayor Richard J. Daley, remembers one in which Hyde ripped into the Truman administration for failing to support the nationalist forces in China."

  At the time, the Republican party in the working-class Democratic stronghold was tiny, and Hyde worked hard to advance in the party.

  In 1956, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, eventually rising to become its majority leader.

  He ran for the US Congress in 1974, eking out an 8,000-vote victory, and has been re-elected ever since. His seniority has made him one of the few current House members who voted for the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that formed the basis for US-Taiwan ties after Washington gave diplomatic recognition to Beijing.

  Hyde's Taiwan speech this week was his strongest assertion yet of America's need to defend Taiwan. Much of his argument had an almost messianic flavor, stemming from his deep religious devotion and what he would see as an almost God-like quality of democracy.

  In another speech in Washington in June, which in many ways presaged the Taiwan address, Hyde held up other reasons for supporting Taiwan.

  "Because Taiwan's ability to resist Beijing is dependent on the US, the struggle over Taiwan is actually a closely watched indicator of the relative power between China and America.

  "As China's power grows, its increasing ability to threaten Taiwan -- and our corresponding inability to protect it -- will be interpreted by all in the region as a shift in the relative strengths between the two countries.

  "At the first sign of US vacillation or weakness, one may expect the various countries in the region to begin making their accommodation with the new rising power," he said.

  Turning to the need to promote democracy in China, he noted, "In that, we have an indispensable ally: a free Taiwan. For that reason, our defense of Taiwan must be resolute; ambiguity on our part will only encourage Beijing to miscalculate and to risk a ruinous confrontation."
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