Dark Clouds over Taiwan Strait: the Greatest Irony of the TRA at 40
2019/04/15
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Dark Clouds over Taiwan Strait: the Greatest Irony of the TRA at 40
United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)
April 10, 2019
Translation of an Excerpt
On April 10, 1979, US President Jimmy Carter signed the "Taiwan Relations Bill" into law, extending the unofficial Taiwan-US exchanges following the rupture of diplomatic relations between the two, while the "US factor" also continued to play a crucial role in the development of cross-Strait relations. Succeeding US administrations, out of national interests, have had different approaches vis-à-vis cross-Strait issues, and the Trump government, observing "deal-style diplomacy," however, has made the fortunes of cross-Strait relations difficult to predict. The Tsai government has trumped that now is the "finest hour" in the history of Taiwan-US relations, which is, we are afraid, rather naive.
The Trump government has been playing the "Taiwan card" based on US national interests, but from Taiwan’s standpoint, the national interests of the Republic of China, however, might be embroiled in an intractable risk. The Tsai government cannot be ignorant of this logic, but because of its Taiwan independence ideology and the selfish workings of "the interests of political parties are higher than the national interests," it thus endlessly, in rhetoric and policies, ratcheted up anti-China strength. In recent months, such operations have become especially obvious. The Tsai government has frequently manipulated cross-Strait relations as a bargaining chip in her bid for re-election, leaving Taiwan to move into a perilous situation of war.
Through the enactment of the "Taiwan Relations Act," the US provided our country with specific security guarantees, allowing Taiwan to develop in a stable and prosperous manner. Examining today's US-China-Taiwan relations, cross-Strait relations have become completely different from 40 years ago; what remains unchanged is US influence in the Taiwan Strait. As far as Taiwan is concerned, we cannot afford to lose the US-- a friend of similar ideals, but we cannot forever blindly consider the Chinese Mainland as a foe. If the two sides of the Strait remain in confrontation, then time has been wasted in the past 40 years. In the fluctuations in cross-Strait relations, how to find the best coordinates for the people's welfare is an issue facing Taiwan.
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