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164 Taiwan Development Perspectives 2009
Thirty Years of TRA
The coming April will mark the 30 th anniversary of
the enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), a
U.S. Congressional ingenuity in governing the conduct
of a particular U. S. foreign policy in the wake of Carter
Administration’s de-recognition of the Republic of
China (R.O.C) while establishing diplomatic relations
with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Through all seven U.S. Administrations, Democratic
and Republican, the TRA has been upheld and
abided by, and often times, termed as a “success”. The
R.O.C. only hopes that this “law of the land” is fully
and faithfully implemented while weathering the diplomatic
storm and trying her utmost to maintain her
critically important relations with the U.S. The R.O.C.
did well.
Self-reliance has been her key to R.O.C.’s progress
and prosperity in the last thirty years. Nevertheless, like
the R.O.C.--U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954,
which provided Taiwan a formidable protective shield
against any external threats for 25 years, the TRA has
been working in a similar manner in providing a useful
shelter, in political, security, and other areas for the
“people on Taiwan”. Certainly, there have been ups and
downs, given the changes taking place within, between
and among Taipei, Beijing and Washington as well as in
the international arena.
The Changing Times
No one would have foreseen merely a decade after
the enactment of TRA that the world had gone through
dramatic changes such as the collapse of communism,
globalization which contributed greatly to the rise of
the People’s Republic of China, rampaging terrorism,
climate change, the current financial tsunami, etc.
Meanwhile, within all three parties in the triangular
relationships, changes in political, economic, social
and other areas have taken place at an unprecedented
pace and extent. No one could have imagined that Dr.
Martin Luther King’s dream of the 60’s would come
true in less than half a century. It was beyond belief that
after some two decades of upheavals of heated politics
and social polarization created by a few groups of special
interests in Taiwan, the voters elected a “mainlander”
president by a landslide. Across the Taiwan Strait,
a sea change has been taking place by transforming the
huge communist country into a massive capitalist factory
for the entire world, elevating the PRC to a new
and proud status as a major power.
Against this tremendous backdrop, a review of the
TRA as well as the status of triangular relationships
ought to be conducted in the right context.
TRA at Twenty
When one looks back to the testimony of a responsible
official before the U.S. Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, entitled “Twenty Years of the Taiwan
Relations Act”, on March 25, 1999, it would be
interesting to notice that the some of his comments
would still be appropriate today. Stanley Roth, the then
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, declared the TRA “a resounding success.”
Mr. Roth pointed out that while the gains in the
U.S.-PRC and the unofficial U.S.-Taiwan relationship
have been formidable, the Beijing-Taipei relationship
has actually experienced the most dramatic improvements.
Taiwan’s security over the long term depends
more on the two sides coming to terms with each other
than on the military balance.
However, he also emphasized that despite modest
qualitative improvements in the military forces of both
China and Taiwan, the dynamic equilibrium of these
forces in the Taiwan Strait has not changed dramatically
over the last two decades. This means that for twenty
years the TRA had been effective.
Mr. Roth said in the same testimony that the Clinton
Administration carried out a lengthy interagency
review of U.S.-Taiwan policy. Based on the review, the
Administration took a number of specific steps: