LOS ANGELES - Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy hosted a forum March 8th on The Worth of US-Taiwan Relations at their Malibu campus.
Some important issues regarding US-Taiwan relations were addressed at the forum including the validity of current U.S. policy regarding Taiwan and cross-strait relations between the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan).
The flowering of democracy on the island of Taiwan under the shadow of the Chinese communist regime across the Taiwan strait is one of the great success stories in international geopolitics. But a complete success in terms of full independence has yet to be realized by the Taiwanese people.
The Chinese communist regime continues to make strong claims to sovereignty over Taiwan, using military intimidation and its anti-secession law enacted last year. As the economic and military influence of the PRC grows it calls into question the commitment of the United States to Taiwan.
The welcoming address was given by James R. Wilburn, Dean of the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University.
"Pepperdine has maintained a close relationship with the people of Taiwan over the years through its academic programs and students. The thing that I think we treasure most about that relationship is the love of freedom and representative government which we share in common with the people of Taiwan in a world where that is not always appreciated, not always honored", Wilburn said.
A brief speech was given by Dr. Wu-lien WEI, Director General, of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles office represents the government and people of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
In his comments, Dr. WEI mentioned that Taiwan's per capita income of more than 15 thousand U.S. dollars is higher than that of several members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "A recent calculation of its foreign currency reserve of $257 billion marked Taiwan as third in the world", WEI said.
"Although on January 1, 1979, the United States changed its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the Taiwan Relation Act (TRA) of 1979 created domestic legal authority for the conduct of unofficial relations with Taiwan."
"Following the de-recognition, the United States terminated its Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan. However, the United States has continued the sale of appropriate defensive military equipment to Taiwan in accordance with the TRA that provides for such sales and which declares that peace and stability in the area are in the U.S. interests."
"In spite of the internal upheaval of the PRC, including the growing disproportion between rich and poor, greed, corruption, bribery, media manipulation, military expansion, and totalitarian rule--many countries are still tilting in favor of China in terms of the Taiwan Strait relationships", WEI said.
WEI explained that the democratic principle of respecting a people's right to determine their own future should be honored, but the PRC continues to threaten their democracy by conniving to unilaterally alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait via non-peaceful means such as military intimidation and its so-called anti-secession law.
"The President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chen Shui-bien, made an announcement the previous week that The National Unification Council (NUC) will cease to function and the National Unification Guidelines (NUG) will cease to apply. These recent decisions were not only for preserving Taiwan's freedom, democracy, human rights, and the peaceful status quo, but also for safeguarding the right and freewill to choose of the 23 million people of Taiwan", WEI said.
The forum was structured in two parts. The first part focused on the U.S. perspective on the Taiwan-china relationship. The 2nd or last half of the forum focused on the Taiwan perspective on the Taiwan-China relationship.
Part I of this report covers some main points made by two of the four panelists on the U.S. perspective of the Taiwan-China relationship. The first panelist to speak was Professor Richard Baum, followed by Professor Bruce Herschensohn.
Professor Richard Baum, UCLA:
Richard Baum is Professor of Political Science at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies. He is the author or editor of 8 books on Chinese politics and has held a variety of visiting professorships in different Asian countries. Below are Professor Baum's comments.
"U.S. foreign policy is caught between two developments, i.e., a major emerging potential super power on mainland China, and a beacon of democratic self-determination in Taiwan. The problem for American foreign policy is how to steer a stable course in between".
"American policy has basically been to steer a course somewhere in the midline of the Taiwan strait and say to each side we respect and support the rights of the people of Taiwan to live their own lives in freedom but we also have diplomatic recognition of mainland China, The Peoples Republic of China, and we are committed to a notion of one China. That was the cost of the U.S.-China normalization in the 1970s".
"Whenever Taiwan, as with the current president Chen Shui-bien, has moved too far towards promoting Taiwanese independence, U.S. policy has been to try to restrain, to caution, to say do not unilaterally try to upset the status quo. On the other hand whenever the Chinese have built up their missiles or declared their hostile intentions toward Taiwan, for example by passing the Anti-secession law [against Taiwan] last year, then U.S. policy veers a little bit in the other direction restraining and cautioning China against making threats to Taiwan".
"So we have pursued a policy of strategic ambiguity, for the last 25 years, not telegraphing in advance what our response will be, but assuring both sides that the common interests of all parties concerned is to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan strait".
"It is not satisfactory to anybody, China wants Taiwan reunified, Taiwan wants legal independence, but the status quo is the most stable, what they call an equilibrium stability. This seems to be the most stable, win-win-win, situation in the Taiwan strait and that's why it has survived for so long as the cornerstone of American policy".
Professor Bruce Herschensohn, Pepperdine:
Bruce Herschensohn is Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. He is the editor of Democracy: The Bridge between Mainland China and Taiwan and Hong Kong at the Handover. He was former Assistant to President Nixon. Below are Professor Herschensohn's comments.
"I believe that there are four great threats to the 23 million people of Taiwan. The first threat is obviously The People's Republic of China (PRC)".
"The second threat, in my opinion, are the business people who continually invest in China hoping to make money, and have produced a super power that will haunt all of us for a long time to come".
"The third threat is the major opposition party in Taiwan, the Koumintang (KMT). It has become in my view a proxy for The PRC".
"The fourth threat is U.S. Policy, which I consider to be absurd, antiquated, and flies in the face of President Bush's most magnificent pursuit in the history of mankind, in my view, which is the support of democracies around the world so that everyone becomes free".
"Our policy inaugurated by our State Department can be encapsulated within two phrases, One-China Policy and Retaining the Status Quo ".
"That One-China policy was born near the beginning of the cold war when Mao Tse-Tung took over China, called it the People's Republic of China, and said I am the legal government of China. And the vanquished government of Chiang Kai-shek, The Republic of China, was moved to Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek and his followers went there. He said no, I am the legal government of China. I am the Republic of China. And so there were two Chinas. We immediately inaugurated a One-China policy".
"We did not want to have two Chinas, we could not recognize two Chinas. And the China that we chose at the beginning of the cold war was Chiang Kai-shek and the Republic of China on Taiwan. After all, Mao was a Stalinist communist, and the head of a communist government. Chiang Kai-shek was an ally in World War II and a friend of the United States".
"We retained that policy from President Truman all the way through Gerald Ford's administration to the beginning of Jimmy Carter's administration. But one night on December 15 of 1978 when the congress had just gone on Christmas vacation, Jimmy Carter asked for television time to give a major speech to the United States, in fact to the world. And he sure did. It was a total surprise. He switched Chinas, traded in Chinas".
"No longer are we going to recognize a Republic of China on Taiwan, we are going to recognize the People's Republic of China on the continent of China. Congress was mad as the devil. They came back to Washington after the first of the year in 1979 and enacted the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) that does call for the defense of Taiwan. So the TRA has really become the cornerstone of our policy there and it is still current today".
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