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“TAIWAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S5860-S5861 on May 1, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TAIWAN
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, I would like to share with my colleagues some developments concerning Taiwan which arose over the April recess.
As my friends are well aware, the State Department has for several years now prohibited the President of the Republic of China on Taiwan, Dr. Lee Teng-hui, from entering the United States. This prohibition extends not only to visits in his capacity as President, but to any visit even as a private citizen. The official rationale for this is that such a visit would offend the sensitivities of the Government of the People's Republic of China, which lays claim to Taiwan as a renegade province.
This stance is troublesome to me and many other Senators for several reasons. First, Taiwan has been our close friend and ally for several decades, and is presently our fifth largest trading partner. It is a moldel emerging democracy in an area not particularly known for strong democratic traditions. Regardless of these facts, however, we reward the Government of Taiwan by denying its elected officials even the most basic right to visit our country. The State Department policy has previously even been raised to the
[[Page S5861]] ridiculous level of denying President Lee, in transit to another country, the ability to disembark from his aircraft during a stop-over in Hawaii.
Second, as I have previously noted on the floor, the only people to whom the United States regularly denies entry are terrorists, convicted felons, and people with certain serious communicable diseases. The Secretary of State has admitted Yasser Arafat, whom we denounced for years as a terrorist thug; he has admitted Terry Adams, the leader of the IRA's political arm Sinn Fein--a group responsible for terrorist attacks throughout the United Kingdom. Few of us in the senate can fathom how the State Department can possible exclude President Lee--the democratically elected leader of a friendly country--when it has admitted these gentlemen, and instead add him to a list of pariahs.
Third, the refusal to admit President Lee comes at the express behest of the Government of the People's Republic of China. In the almost slavish lengths to which the State Department has gone to honor that demand, it has done nothing but strengthen the perception on Capitol Hill that it is rushing to kowtow to Beijing. State has countered that the People's Republic of China has threatened grave ramifications if Lee were to be admitted--since the People's Republic of China claims Taiwan to be a province--and admitting President Lee would be tantamount to a country admitting Gov. Pete Wilson as the head of government of a sovereign independent California, thereby threatening the authority of the central government. Yet their own actions severely undercut the Department's position. The Secretary has repeatedly admitted his Holiness the Dalai Lama to the United States. The Dalai Lama purports--rightly in my view--to represent the legitimate Government of Tibet. Chinese troops occupied Tibet in the 1950's, displaced the Government and absorbed Tibet as a province--the
Xizang Zizhiqu or Xizang Autonomous Region. Despite Beijing's warnings to the contrary--warnings similar to those on Taiwan--we have admitted the Dalai Lama. We have done this despite the fact that, like President Lee, the Dalai Lama claims to represent a country which the People's Republic of China considers to be a province. Why, then, the inconsistency in the State Department's position?
Fourth, attempts by the People's Republic of China to dictate our immigration policy to us strike many as presumptuous. To put it in terms which the Government in Beijing can understand: Who we admit to this country under our immigration laws is strictly an internal affair of the United States. Mr. President, the People's Republic of China is continually telling us to butt out of issues they consider to be their internal affairs--human rights abuses, for example; they would do well to listen to their own advice.
Congress has made it abundantly clear that it disapproves of the administration's position on this issue. Votes urging the Secretary to allow the visit have passed overwhelmingly in both Houses in past years. This year, Senate Concurrent Resolution 9 and its House counterpart both enjoy wide, bipartisan support. I expect that they will both come to a vote within the next week and pass with few, if any, detractors.
There have been some signs--albeit exceedingly subtle--that the administration may be considering some reworking of its past positions. In New York City on the 17th of this month, on the occasion of the visit of the People's Republic of China's Foreign Minister Qian, a senior State Department official made certain statements which may provide a small glimmer of hope that the administration may be coming around. Mr. President, you will note from the amount of qualifying words that I have just used that I consider the likelihood of them coming around to be rather slim.
That would be unfortunate, because I think that it would reflect an underestimation of the depth of the feeling in the Congress on this issue. Just so there is no mistaking what I believe the reaction of the Senate will be to a continued denial of a private visit by President Lee--even in the face of the two resolutions--let me point out the following for our friends in the administration. I have prepared legislation to require the Secretary to admit President Lee this year for a private visit, which already has seven original cosponsors. At least two other Senators I know of are poised to introduce similar legislation. Should the Secretary fail to accommodate a private visit by President Lee in the very near future, the three of us are prepared to act. I will ensure that any such legislation moves quickly through my subcommittee, and on to the floor.
Mr. President, it is unfortunate that this simple issue has had to come to this. If the parties had simply, we could have put this behind us and gotten on with the more serious issues that concern us. The obstinance of the State Department, and the People's Republic of China, only serves to harden Members' attitudes and to turn their attention toward other, more controversial, areas such as Taiwan's participation in the United Nations and WTO. We would all do well to remember the proverbial observation that the grass that bends with the wind survives the storm, while the branch that remains stiff and obstinate does not.
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