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“THE ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO SUPPORT TAIWAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2293-E2294 on Dec. 5, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO SUPPORT TAIWAN
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HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
of new york
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, December 5, 1995
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, recently A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times wrote two thought provoking articles regarding Taiwan. He points out how the administration's apparent weakness in supporting our democratic friends there plays into the hands of the dictators in Beijing.
There are a number of territorial disputes in Asia. One of the most contentious is the ownership and future of the island of Taiwan. Regretably, short of an early collapse of the dictatorship in Beijing, the 45-year-old stalemate over the issue shows no signs of an immediate resolution.
Taiwan is a free democracy. A nation where people can express their thoughts and practice their religious beliefs. Through the long years it has remained a loyal friend and steadfast ally of the United States. The Republic of China is one of Asia's economic miracles featuring a strong and growing economy with less than 1-percent unemployment. From our perspective this is the type of free and democratic society we need to support in the region and around the world. On the other hand we have the People's Republic of China. The Beijing leadership has repeatedly proven itself over the years to be an oppressive dictatorship with little regard for human and religious rights, much less political freedom. Its military fought against ours in Korea, supported the Communists in North Vietnam, and currently ships weapons of mass destruction to terrorist nations in the Middle East.
For the past 10 years whenever an effort was attempted by the Congress to respond to Beijing's egregious behavior we were told, that there is a political transition period underway in China and if we took any substantive action we would be strengthening the hands of the hardliners.
And so for the last decade, whenever the Congress attempted to respond to China's export of products made by slave labor, we were told by the State Department to back off.
When we raised the issue of the Communist's repression of religious and political thought, the State Department told us that economic liberalization will bring about political pluralism.
Accordingly, Beijing has never paid a price for its unfair trade practices, arms proliferation, repression in occupied Tibet, massive military buildup, the recent aggression in the Spratly Islands, its disregard for intellectual property rights, its illegal detention of Harry Wu, an American citizen, and its threatening military exercise off the cost of Taiwan. On the contrary, the State Department believes that we need to further soften our approach to Beijing.
I am all for working peacefully and negotiating quietly with the Chinese. But time and time again, the State Department has failed to bring home the bacon. Constructive engagement cannot be just a one way endeavor. The State Department needs to recognize this and adjust its course.
Considering all these facts, the Congress is compelled to ask if Taiwan's time has come to be recognized by the world's community of nations. And if so, what can this body do to help the free people of Taiwan. Taiwan leadership has repeatedly asked for our help in their quest for their people to have the last word in their own future.
Let me say that now is the time to help our friends on the island of Taiwan. We have been waiting far too long to respond to their aspirations and hope.
Accordingly, I ask that the full text of A.M. Rosenthal's articles be printed in the Record at this point.
Yes, There Is a Taiwan
(By A.M. Rosenthal)
Taipei, Taiwan.--The trucks move day and night through the streets of Taiwan like creatures alive and wild with their own energy--shouting and singing through their loudspeakers, denouncing, trumpeting, cajoling, forbidding escape or the succor of a moment's silence.
The loudspeakers, mounted fore, aft and atop, deliver a gigantic rolling headache. But they also deliver the sound of democracy, to a small country new to it, and to a huge glowering country whose leaders detest the thought of it.
This is campaign time in Taiwan, a free campaign, fought hard, for the free election of a national legislature. It is the most important democratic step since 40 years of military rule ended in 1987 and the democratic process began on this island--an often-tested missile-distance across the waters from Communist China.
And next March an even more important election will take place. The people of the islands will take part in a direct presidential election--the first direct election of a national leader in the thousands of years of history of the Chinese people.
The economic development of Taiwan moves ahead smartly, and so does its democratic development. That is news of importance far beyond this island.
Asia has a batch of countries developing economically but not democratically. Just give Asians a full belly, the colonial West used to say. Now that is amended: Just give them a motorbike and big-screen TV.
Taiwan is crowded, its cities are messy and its roadsides junk-strewn. But politically it is becoming quite handsome, a living denial of the slur that Chinese are content to live without political freedom.
Westerners have a way of thinking of Taiwan in relation only to China and their own interests. Mostly they think nervously of how furious Beijing will get if the West gives any acknowledgment or respect to this island that the Communists say is their own province, now and forever.
The West trembles to breathe a word about allowing Taiwan to take part in international activities--even helping refugees. Its skin crawls with fear that Beijing will reduce the West's right to take part in the China trade and the privilege of buying from China billions of dollars more in goods than the West has any hope of ever selling to China.
The worldwide diplomatic blockade that Beijing has created against Taiwan is not the worst of it. When Beijing thinks that the substantial movement toward an independent Taiwan is getting stronger, or sees the horror of democracy rising on this prosperous island so close to the mainland, the Chinese Communists mount menacing military operations. No pretense is made that the exercise and the ugly warnings by top military men are not aimed at intimidating Taiwan and aborting its growing fascination with democratic practice. Expect more threats.
The people of the island, ethnically Chinese, descend either from families that have lived here for centuries or from immigrants who fled to Taiwan with Nationalist army when it was defeated by the Communists in 1949.
The ruling party is the Kuomintang, a mellowed offspring of the hard-handed party of Chiang Kai-shek. It is headed by President Lee Teng-hui. Mr. Lee gave Beijing a heart attack recently by visiting his American alma mater, Cornell University, Beijing has been trying ever since to give one apiece to him and the U.S. for such impertinence.
The Kuomintang stands for reunification with the mainland--some day, when Beijing manages to become non-Communist, and a convert to human rights. So the KMT is denounced by the New Party, made up of breakaway KMT hard-liners, as kind of Confucian Coalition.
The major opposition is the Democratic Progressive Party--strong for independence, but not ready to invite Communist attack by making a Taiwan July Fourth Declaration.
Panting for the China trade, the U.S. forbids Taiwan representatives to set foot in the State Department or White House. But the weeks of democratic campaigning prove that whether Beijing and its international business lobby approve or not, Taiwan has produced a prosperous, growingly democratic society of its own, separate in political practice and desire from the mainland.
Or, as it appears on posters around the island: ``Yes, there is a Taiwan.'' Send in more trucks.
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The Blockades of Taiwan
(By A.M. Rosenthal)
Taipei, Taiwan.--They come almost every day now--the military threats to this island country from the Communist Government in Beijing.
Chinese Army commanders order repeated amphibious landings at the mainland coast nearest the island--the precise kind of operation that would be needed to invade Taiwan--and
``tests'' of missiles in the straits dividing China and the island. In recent days there has been a series of leaked reports that Beijing is considering a naval blockade of Taiwan.
Nobody knows whether the threats are meant only to frighten all Taiwanese into abandoning any thought of independence, however distant, or whether Beijing is readying its people and the world for an attack. If it does take place it is likely to be in the spring of 1996 before or after Taiwan holds its first direct presidential election.
But the evidence is that the military command is beginning to operate and plan independently of the civilian leadership in the Politburo.
This much seems clear from here: The West is operating on the assumption that if it says and does nothing, why, any dangers will vanish in a merciful blip.
The studious silence arises from the fundamental China policy of the West: Rock no Chinese boat lest Beijing throw easy Western access to the Chinese market overboard.
The West manages to maintain its silence because a Chinese blockade of Taiwan already exists: the political and diplomatic blockade created by Beijing after it took over the China seat in the U.N. in 1971.
The government on Taiwan was not only ousted from the U.N. but from the international community. Taiwan, one of the largest trading nations in the world, has been cut off from normal diplomatic and political relations with almost the whole world.
The U.S. maintains an ``institute'' in Taipei headed by a
``director.'' But no flag is flown outdoors to save Beijing a fit. In Washington, representatives of Taiwan cannot sully the State department or White House by their presence. So far, separate drinking fountains for Taiwanese representatives have not been set up.
Taiwan is not only barred from the U.N. but from all its many specialized agencies, including those supposed to deal with such universal subjects as health and agriculture--say, AIDS or starvation.
The blockade is so obsessively enforced that it even excludes aid to refugees. Last year the U.N. appealed for funds for Rwandan refugees, among the most suffering of God's human creatures. Taiwan offered $2 million; refused. The Taiwanese did manage to get their gift accepted--by channeling it through an American committee for Unicef.
Correspondents from Taiwan are not permitted to enter the U.N. As a former reporter at the U.N., in its early days, I have thought of slipping my pass to a correspondent from Taiwan, to annoy U.N. authorities, but I decided it wouldn't work.
Before Beijing commanded the U.N., correspondents from non-member peoples were allowed in. I learned more about North Africa and Indonesia from independence-movement reporters than I ever did from the colonial French or Dutch.
North Korea and South Korea are members and so were East and West Germany. The Palestine Liberation Organization was given representation at the General Assembly with only a vote lacking.
But when China decided that any dreams of independence, sovereignty or even dignity that Taiwan might harbor were too dangerous to tolerate, this special apartheid was created for the island. The U.S. and most other U.N. members meekly kissed Beijing's iron slipper.
That means Taiwan cannot use an U.N. or any normal diplomatic channel to raise an alarm that had to be officially heard about the open military threats from Beijing. If any other country had threatened another so blatantly the case would immediately have been on the U.N. agenda.
Now of course most U.N. members, including the U.S., would be paralyzed with economic terror at the very idea of proposing that Taiwan as well as China be represented at the U.N. But perhaps Washington, London, Paris and Tokyo will dredge up enough courage to increase their own diplomatic contacts with Taiwan as a warning to China. Perhaps.
Until now the Chinese diplomatic blockade and Western submission to it have been merely disgusting. Now they are getting dangerous.
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