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Enhancing ties with
US Congress
By Parris Chang 張旭成
The US Congress enacted in the spring of 1979, in the wake of then-US president
Jimmy Carter’s move to recognize Beijing and sever official relations with the
Republic of China (ROC), the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which Carter was
politically compelled to sign. The TRA is unique in diplomatic history, as it is
a domestic US law, but governs US relations with Taiwan and China.
It mandates the US “to provide Taiwan with arms of defensive character” by
committing the US to Taiwan’s security and restores a semblance of sovereignty
to Taiwan’s status. It also openly declares an intention to “resist any resort
to force” against the people of Taiwan and puts Beijing on notice that any use
of coercion to change Taiwan’s status would be a matter “of grave concern to the
United States.”
In a real sense, the TRA is very much a “function substitute” for the US-ROC
Mutual Defense Treaty, which came into force in 1955, but had to be terminated
at the end of 1979 at Beijing’s demand, as it incorporated in substance the same
protective relationship the US had maintained with Taiwan since the 1950s.
In recent years, there has been an alarming tendency by officials in the
administration of US President Barack Obama to disregard provisions in the TRA,
especially with reference to Taiwan’s defense, in obvious submission to
Beijing’s persistent lobbying and threats.
William Bader, a former chief of staff of the US Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, decried the fact that the Obama administration had “shown little to
no knowledge or real interest” in the TRA.
Former US Department of State and US Department of Defense official Randall
Shriver also complained in a congressional hearing last month that the Obama
administration did not have high enough aspirations for Taiwan and castigated it
for having severely neglected US responsibilities under the TRA to provide arms
to Taipei and help Taiwan meet its defense needs.
Whereas the TRA clearly stipulates the US’ obligation to provide Taiwan with
“such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be
necessary” for Taiwan’s defense, concern over China’s reaction has prevented the
Obama administration from moving forward on Taiwan’s repeated requests for the
sale of F-16C/D aircraft and submarines.
It is in such a context that US Representative Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson
of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives, told a
special hearing titled “Why Taiwan Matters” on June 16 that she would soon
introduce new legislation “to enhance the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Ros-Lehtinen stated emphatically: “It is strongly in America’s national interest
to re-energize and upgrade relations between our two peoples.”
In a wide-ranging speech delivered in Los Angeles on June 11, Ros-Lehtinen said
that it was long overdue for Obama to sell F-16C/D aircraft to Taiwan and to
work to improve relations with Taiwan, a great beacon of democracy in East Asia
and an important US ally. She warned that the military balance across the Taiwan
Strait continued to shift in favor of China, while Taiwan’s defense spending has
been cut below 3 percent of GDP under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
She is apprehensive that Taiwan appears to have become an afterthought in the
Obama adminisration’s larger aims of engagement with China and there is “a new
spirit of appeasement in the air.”
Is it possible for Ros-Lehtinen and her like-minded colleagues to enact new
legislation to enhance the TRA and bolster US-Taiwan security ties? This is
almost a mission impossible, judging from the history of the Taiwan Security
Enhancement Act (TSEA).
In March 1999, Republican senators Jesse Helms and Frank Murkowski and
Democratic senator Robert Torricelli co-sponsored the TSEA to boost US-Taiwan
security ties and to mandate the US to upgrade sales of advanced defensive
weapons and technology to Taiwan, in an effort to override the objections of the
administration of then-US president Bill Clinton.
The TSEA draft was taken up by the House of Representatives and, after some
debate and amendments, was approved by a majority, albeit not veto-free, in
March 2000. In the US Senate, however, the going was much tougher and several
senators opposed to the TSEA were able to resort to a special senatorial rule to
“hold” it, thereby obstructing its deliberation and ultimately killing it. In
April 2001, three months after then-US president George W. Bush came into
office, he announced a big package of arms sales to Taiwan, but refused to
support the TSEA, because it could tie his hands in the future.
Does this mean Congress is powerless to affect the US-Taiwan relations?
Absolutely not.
As Congress controls the purse strings, it is able to use allocation of
resources to persuade, if not force, the executive branch to act. It could
attach to the Defense Authorization Act a binding request for the Pentagon to
provide a detailed report on the security situation in the Taiwan Strait and a
complete review of Taiwan’s defense needs. Such a report would likely show the
alarming military imbalance and China’s clear and present threat against Taiwan,
and will thus have critical policy implications for the US under the TRA.
It is no secret that Chinese diplomats in Washington and visiting ranking
officials from Beijing are actively lobbying the Obama administration and
Congress. In contrast, officials at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural
Representative Office in Washington have been relatively passive in accordance
with the Ma government’s “diplomatic truce.” It is therefore imperative that
Taiwan’s civic organizations, including the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP),
take up the job on behalf of Taiwan. It is incumbent on us to inform our US
friends that our two peoples share the values of freedom and democracy and
appeal to them to help us safeguard our independence and maintain the “status
quo.”
Now that the DPP has nominated party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as its
candidate in next year’s presidential election, it would be well advised to
re-establish the party’s office in the US, as it was called the “DPP Mission in
Washington” from 1995 to 2000. Now, as then, the office would communicate with
and inform the US and the media where a future DPP government stands on Taiwan’s
relations with the US, China, Japan and the EU, as well as the major planks of
its policy platform. It must reassure the US that Taiwan, under a DPP
government, would be a valuable, trustworthy, democratic friend that, unlike the
Ma government, would not submit to China’s whims.
Parris Chang, professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State
University, is chair professor of general studies at Toko University and chief
executive of the Taiwan Institute of Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
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