“A TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN CHEN” published by Congressional Record on April 3, 2000

“A TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN CHEN” published by Congressional Record on April 3, 2000

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Volume 146, No. 39 covering the 2nd Session of the 106th Congress (1999 - 2000) was published by the Congressional Record.

The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.

“A TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN CHEN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E479-E480 on April 3, 2000.

The publication is reproduced in full below:

A TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN CHEN

______

HON. GARY L. ACKERMAN

of new york

in the house of representatives

Monday, April 3, 2000

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to the attention of my colleagues an article regarding Representative Steven Chen, who serves as the head of the Taipei Cultural and Economic Representative Office in Washington. The article, which ran in today's New York Times, is a fitting tribute to Taiwan's unofficial Ambassador, who has worked diligently to promote and expand relations between the United States and the 22 million citizens of Taiwan.

Mr. Speaker, Ambassador Chen is a thorough professional who has enjoyed a long and distinguished life as a career diplomat. He has represented his government all over the world, including postings in the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. His experience in the United States also is extensive. During the past 25 years, Ambassador Chen served in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and he has spent the last three years as the Representative in Washington, DC.

Mr. Speaker, I am certain my colleagues would agree that Steven Chen's charm and quiet demeanor have served Taiwan well. Whether meeting Members of Congress in their offices or Executive Branch officials in a more neutral setting, Ambassador Chen has always worked to make certain the United States and Taiwan remain strong friends.

Mr. Speaker, as the article notes, Ambassador Chen is planning to retire shortly. I am certain all of my colleagues join me in congratulating Steven Chen on a distinguished diplomatic career. We in the Congress are indeed fortunate to know him, and we wish him well in the years ahead.

A Diplomatic Outsider Who Lobbies Inside Washington

(By Philip Shenon)

Washington.--At an embassy that is not an embassy, the ambassador who is not an ambassador can only imagine what it is like to be a full-fledged member of Washington's diplomatic corps.

``In the evenings, you attend cocktail parties, champagne dances,'' Stephen Chen said wistfully of the black-tie world from which he is largely excluded. ``This is the very routine, beautiful picture of the diplomat in a textbook.''

Mr. Chen, the director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, the de facto embassy here for the government of Taiwan, is a charming pariah.

While he represents the interests of 22 million of the freest and richest people in Asia, the 66-year-old diplomat might as well be invisible, at least as far as many of the State Department's China experts are concerned.

The snubs, Mr. Chen suggested, are an obvious effort to appease Beijing, and they are more than a little unfair to a government that is only weeks away from a peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected leader to another, the first time that has happened in almost 5,000 years of Chinese history.

``There is a kind of unfairness,'' Mr. Chen tells a visitor, the wall behind his desk decorated with a painting of the delicate blossoms of the winter plum, Taiwan's national flower. ``We have been a model student for freedom, democracy and a market economy.''

``We don't mind if the United States has rapprochement with mainland China--we think it's good to bring the P.R.C. into the family of civilizations,'' he says of the People's Republic of China,

Because the United States has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan and has recognized the Communist government in Beijing as the sole representative of the people of China, Mr. Chen and his staff of nearly 200 are barred from the premises of the State Department.

They are not invited to diplomatic receptions at the White House, or to most of the dinner parties and glittery balls held at the embassies of nations that recognize Beijing.

When Taiwanese diplomats want to talk with Clinton administration officials, the meetings are often held in hotel coffee shops.

``We must meet in a neutral setting, that is the rule,'' says Mr. Chen, explaining the awkward logistics of the job.

Relations with China have been especially jittery since Taiwan's election last month of the new president, Chen Shui-bian, a former democracy activist who long advocated Taiwan's independence and whose victory ended half a century of Nationalist rule.

On the eve of the election, Chinese leaders all but warned of an invasion if Mr. Chen and his party were victorious. Since the election, both Mr. Chen and Beijing have softened their rhetoric, and Mr. Chen has recently insisted that he sees no need for an independence declaration.

Stephen Chen, who is not related to the new president, welcomes the moderated rhetoric from Taiwan's new government. The Communist leaders in Beijing, he says, would strike only

``if they should be unnecessarily provoked.''

``We have been dealing with them for more than 60 years,'' he said. ``We know when they are bluffing, when they are not bluffing. If we don't give them an excuse, I don't think they're going to attack.''

Mr. Chen, who was born in the Chinese city of Nanjing, last saw the mainland in 1949, when his family was on the run from the victorious Communist forces of Mao Zedong. They fled to Taiwan, his father a diplomat in the service of the Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek.

His father was assigned to the embassy in the Philippines when Mr. Chen was 15, and he remained there for more than a decade, attending college in Manila, marrying his Chinese-Filipino high school sweetheart and becoming fluent in English.

In 1960, he returned to Taiwan and passed the foreign service exam. He was first sent to Rio de Janeiro, and then to Argentina and Bolivia. In 1973, he was named consul general to Atlanta, where he remained until the United States severed relations with Taiwan and recognized Beijing six years later.

Mr. Chen said he can remember sitting in his living room in Atlanta, watching the televised announcement by President Carter that the

``It seemed very unfair,'' he continued. ``It was as if the United States wanted to reward a bad guy, the lousy student, and to punish the good student. That was my feeling.''

In the years since, he said, Taiwanese diplomats have learned how to innovate, especially in Washington, where they employ some of the city's most powerful lobbyists and retain close ties to many prominent conservative members of Congress.

Mr. Chen says his office has an annual budget for lobbying of about $1.2 million and contracts with 15 firms. ``They help open doors, they make appointments for us,'' he said.

``But we make the presentations.''

Under a 1979 law, Taiwan can continue to buy American weapons.

And Mr. Chen has been a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill in recent weeks as his government seeks Congressional approval for the sale of a wish list of sophisticated weapons. ``If we are deprived of basic defensive weapons, then of course we are thrown to the wolves,'' he said.

Mr. Chen is considering a visit to the lair of the wolves. After 40 years in the diplomatic service, he is nearing retirement, and he is planning a vacation on the mainland, which is now permitted.

``I tell you very frankly, I would like to see the Great Wall,'' he said. ``This belongs to the legacy of China. It has nothing to do with Communism.''

____________________

SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 146, No. 39

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