Taiwan Relations Act

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立 政 治 大 學

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N a tio na

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1.4 Taiwan Relations Act

In order to soften the blow of the normalization, Taipei hoped Washington would at least make three concessions: The United States would make a strong commitment to the security of Tai-wan, Sino-American normalization would be accompanied by a Beijing’s promise not to use force against Taiwan, and Washington would continue U.S. arms sales to Taiwan in the future.

In fact, Taipei only got the third assurance through the Congress’s help. On January 26, 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act (與台灣關係法, TRA) prepared the way for America’s continuous support, in terms of future arms sales and nongovernmental ties, with Taiwan.

The TRA committed the U.S. to “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” and “to make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capability.”

The TRA, however, did not provide a definition of the so-called “defensive character” nor the conditions through which the U.S. would response to a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

According to Taiwanese scholar David Lee Da-wei, the Sino-American normalization not only impacted cross-strait relations, but it was in line with Washington primary goal to prevent war in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing also hoped to quickly bring Taiwan back into the fold by using the same normalization process, as it was almost entirely carried out by the leadership of the two countries.¹⁸

On the same day China and the U.S. established diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979, the People's Congress chose to address to the leaders of Taiwan in particular (告台灣同胞書) and lectured them about the thirty-year old separation of Taiwan from the mainland, which to PRC standards was regarded as artificial because it went against the desire and the interest of the Chinese population. At this crucial point, we could observe China’s official opening for an up-front drive “peaceful unification” (和平統一祖國), as opposed to the previous “liberation of Taiwan” (解放台灣) policy. ¹⁹

18 David Lee Da-wei, The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 1.

19 Zhang Ya-chung [張亞中] and Lee Ying-ming [李英明], Mainland China and Relations across the Taiwan Strait [中國大陸與兩岸關係概論] (Taipei: Sheng-Chih Books [生智], 2000), p. 210.

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立 政 治 大 學

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As expected, this united front for unification didn’t pass unnoticed in Taiwan, but to Chiang Ching-kuo, “roping in the enemies” was nothing but another military tactic in the struggle be-tween the PRC and the ROC. Chiang thus decided to stick to his previous “three noes” policy (三不政策) of no contact, no compromise and no dialogue for the time being.

The issue of the arms sales to Taiwan also resurfaced in the early 1980s as Reagan’s election gave new hopes to Taipei that Washington would provide advanced fighter aircrafts to replace the aging, short-range F-5Es.

As expected, Beijing strongly opposed such decision and eventually pushed through the signa-ture of the August, 17 1982 Joint Communiqué on arms sales to Taiwan (中[共]美八一七公報).

In this third Communiqué, the U.S. departed from the TRA and provided for an open-ended American commitment based solely on Taiwan’s defensive needs.

Washington tried to ease the shock of the Communiqué on Taiwan by alleviating Taipei’s fears that it was being “sold out,” this time, through the so-called Six Assurances (六點保證) an-nounced in July 1982, one month before the last communiqué.

Chiang Ching-kuo, however, complained bitterly to the apparent promise to phase out arms sales to Taiwan in exchange for an improvement of Sino-American relations. As a result, Chiang was given more forcefully secret assurances that the United States would provide Tai-wan with sufficient arms to unable the ROC to maintain an appropriate self-defense capacity against the PRC.²⁰

At the same time, Beijing continued its offensive for peaceful reunification.

On January 11, 1982, Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) mentioned publicly and for the first time, the concept of “one country, two systems” (一個國家，兩種制度) as a way to settle the issues of Hong-Kong, Macau and Taiwan, without neither destroying China’s system, nor changing theirs.

Chiang Ching-kuo still remained unmoved by the proposal as it would have sounded like Taipei was unconditionally surrendering to Beijing if the ROC was to accept such an unequal negotia-tion framework.

20 Alan D. Romberg, Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Re-lations (Washington, D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), p. 139.

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One and a half years later, Deng enunciated six more principles to add to the “one country, two systems” blueprint for solving the Taiwan question, which further reinforced Taipei perception that Beijing was summoning the ROC to yield the control of Taiwan to the PRC.²¹

Then, on July 24, 1982, Beijing took another policy initiative and tried to contact directly with Chiang Ching-kuo through the intermediary of Liao Chengzhi (廖承志), as both were former classmates in Moscow in the 1930s.²² The letter, entitled “Sending a message to Chiang Ching-kuo” (致蔣經國信) stressed that with the years passing by, one becomes more and more nostal-gic, and suggested that Chiang Ching-kuo leaved his mark in the annals of history and renewed the contact with mainland China.

In both cases, Chiang couldn’t overcome his tortuous feelings regarding the communists and decided to indefinitely keep with the “three noes” policy of no contact, no compromise and no dialogue, but at the same time, he turned a blind eye to the growing cross-strait trade, which in 1984 already amounted to US$550 million.²³

Given these previous constraints, China’s offensive for a peaceful unification gradually expand-ed beyond Chiang Ching-kuo. In January 1984, Deng Yingchao (鄧穎超), the widow of Zhou Enlai (周恩來), called this time on both the KMT leadership and the Dang Wai (黨外) lead-ers — the initiators of Taiwan’s future main opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to strive for unification with the mainland. In September 1984, after China and England reached their agreement regarding Hong Kong, Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) and Deng Yingchao ap-pealed to all the Taiwanese compatriots to avoid the catastrophe of an armed conflict.

After President Chiang Ching-kuo passed away, on January 13, 1988, it was one more time the China side, which tried to establish contact with Taipei. On February 5, Nan Huaijin (南懷瑾)²⁴ contacted directly President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and expressed his hope that he could help with the cross-strait stalemate — Nan and Lee eventually met two years later in Taipei.

21 Deng Xiaoping’s Six Conceptions for the Peaceful Reunification were first stated during a meeting with an American scholar, professor Yang Liyu from Seton Hall University on June 26, 1983, see for reference Xinhua net: http://www.chinataiwan.org/web/webportal/W5096185/Uadmin/A5113228.html

22 Member of the Politburo and Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (1908-1983)

23 Yang Pi-chuan, Op. Cit., p. 152.

24 Nan Huaijin, a national literature master with profound and original understanding to Buddhism theory.

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立 政 治 大 學

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Actually, when Lee Teng-hui assumed office of chairman of the KMT in July 1988, the new president immediately knew that he would have to rely on his personal initiatives to consolidate his authority. From the outset, he played the same old tune of the “three principles of the people and the unification of China” (三民主義統一中國) and restated that he opposed the in-dependence of Taiwan, but at the same time, he also started to push for the Kuomintang to read-just its China policy.

Given the previous fiasco of publicly inviting Chiang Ching-kuo to accept the “one country, two systems” framework, which was considered in Taipei like an open summon to surrender, Bei-jing and Taipei conjointly opted this time for the development of a secret channel of communi-cation in order to evade the general animosity and reinforce mutual trust.

Between December 1990 and August 1992, nine secret meetings in Hong Kong between cross-strait emissaries — organized through the intermediary of Nan Huaijin — played a major role in bringing Taipei and Beijing back to the negotiation table.²⁵

During these various encounters, both parties touched upon far flung issues ranging from the cooperation against the cross-strait mafias to the new name for Taiwan’s participation in the WTO.

The most important aspect of these discussions was in fact their deep political nature. According to the former secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council (國家安全會議), Su Chi (蘇起), Taiwan representative Su Zhicheng (蘇志誠) explained to its Chinese counterpart each and every of President Lee’s policy initiatives during these meetings.

Topics ranged from Lee’s position regarding the Taiwan independence movement, the suppres-sion of the “mobilization period to stop the rebellion in China” (動員勘亂時期), the framework governing the National Unification Guidelines, the National Unification Council (國統綱領與 國統會), the Mainland Affairs Office (陸委會) and the Straits Exchange Foundation (海基會), or the proposition for the signature of a peaceful agreement between the ROC and the PRC.²⁶

25 These meetings were brought up to light in a special report of Business Weekly in July 2000: Wei Chengzhi [魏承思], “The Lee Teng-hui Era: The Real Story about of the Nine Secret Meetings” [李登輝時代：兩岸九 度密談實錄], Business Weekly, No 661 [商業周刊－第 661 期] (July 24, 2000), pp. 60-94.

26 Su Qi [蘇起], The Danger Becomes Green: From the Two States Theory to One Country on Each Side [危險 邊綠：從兩國論到一邊一國] (Taipei: 天下文化 [Tianxia Culture], 2003), p. 14.

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In return, the Chinese envoy suggested that both parties signed a “three stops” agreement (三停 止) that would prevent military, commercial or political confrontations, and hold direct negotia-tions on the unification question.