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US needs to put end
to ¡¥one China¡¦ confusion
By Nat Bellocchi ¥Õ¼Ö±T
The episode surrounding the May 18 joint press conference between US Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and Chief of the General Staff of
the People¡¦s Liberation Army (PLA) General Chen Bingde (³¯¬±¼w) laid bare a major
weakness in the formulation of policies toward Taiwan and China.
There, Chen incorrectly quoted US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
saying: ¡§She told me ¡X she reiterated the US policy; that is, there is only one
China in the world and Taiwan is part of China.¡¨
Also, when asked whether Taiwan¡¦s security can be safeguarded with US sales of
the F-16 fighter planes, Mullen said: ¡§As General Chen said, Secretary Clinton
repeated and I would only re-emphasize the United States policy supports a
one-China policy. And I certainly share the view of the peaceful reunification
of China.¡¨
Both statements required subsequent clarifications.
This is not the first time that such misinterpretations have been made. The most
famous was by former US president Bill Clinton in June 1998, when he stated in a
speech at Beijing University that US policy was ¡§no obstacle to peaceful
reunification of China and Taiwan.¡¨
Other examples are remarks by White House spokesman Mike McCurry in July 1995,
who wrongly stated that the US had ¡§accepted¡¨ the Chinese position (Taiwan is a
part of China) and by then-US secretary of state Colin Powell during a visit to
Beijing in October 2004, who reiterated the reunification misnomer.
Why do US policies cause so much confusion? First, perhaps because the Taiwan
Relations Act (TRA) is now 32 years old, and most of those who drafted this
important legislation have passed on. Yet, this is no excuse: The Constitution
is more than 200 years old and still gives rise to lively debates. The second
reason is that US officials only listen to Beijing, as the US has artificially
imposed constraints on contact with Taipei. If the US had high-level
face-to-face contact with Taiwan¡¦s elected leaders, it would gain a more
balanced perspective.
A third reason is that US policy is not well defined. On April 21, 2004, former
US assistant secretary of state James Kelly admitted the difficulty of defining
the US¡¦ position on the ¡§one China¡¨ policy.
¡§I¡¦m not sure I very easily could define it,¡¨ he said, adding: ¡§I can tell you
what it is not. It is not the ¡¥one China¡¦ principle that Beijing suggests.¡¨
Such confusion can only lead to long-term miscalculations and a hardening of
position by authoritarian rulers China.
So, perhaps the US should define it more clearly and state that the ¡§one China¡¨
policy means that it only recognizes one government as the real government of
China. The question facing Washington in the 1970s was which regime truly
represented China. That was resolved by recognizing Beijing.
As far as Taiwan is concerned, the US needs to enunciate a policy that ensures
that Taiwanese can determine their own future. Present-day Taiwan is a far cry
from the repressive authoritarian ¡§Republic of China¡¨ which Washington
derecognized in 1979. US policy facilitated the transition to democracy, but at
the same it relegated Taiwan to international diplomatic isolation.
Taiwan is now a free and democratic nation and the people are proud of their
peaceful transition to democracy and their Taiwanese identity and heritage. So
if the US wants to review the TRA, it needs to strengthen it in order to be more
supportive of Taiwan¡¦s existence as a free democracy. The US and other
democratic nations must be more creative in helping craft a way for Taiwan to
find its rightful place in the international family of nations.
Nat Bellocchi served as US ambassador to Botswana and is a former chairman of
the American Institute in Taiwan. The views expressed in this article are his
own.
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