APPENDIX 4

[From the New Republic, May 13, 1972]

TAIWAN AS A CHINESE PROBLEM-THE SOLUTION WON'T COME

FROM YALE OR HARVARD

(By John K. Fairbank)1

In the joint Shanghai communique of February 27, Mr. Nixon tried to remove the United States from the Taiwan question, but it is surfacing again as a new thorn in the American liberal conscience. The communique said "the United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China." But now the phrase "all Chinese" is decried as an unfair brushoff of the Taiwan independence movement. My close comrade in arms, Prof. Edwin O. Reischauer (the New York Times, Mar. 20) has prudently noted that "no one can speak with certainty about what is in the minds of the Taiwanese." But, he then continued, "as best one can judge, the vast majority of them appear to yearn for a separate Taiwan from China and a government they themselves control." The Times pushed his argument a bit further with the caption, "What the Taiwanese Really Feel."

Farther along the spectrum and with less objectivity, a New Republic article of April 1 by Michael Reisman, who teaches law at Yale, is headed, "Who Owns Taiwan? Neither Mao nor Chiang." Mr. Reisman examines the diplomatic and legal record and finds that China "has a very doubtful legal claim to the island state." He tells us that by the 18th century a distinctive Taiwanese identity had developed, and that it is doubtful that the Ch'ing dynasty controlled the island enough to estabilsh title to it in international law. So tenuous is Mr. Reisman's research on the history of Taiwan that he has the unwitting effrontery to offer, without citing his source, the alleged testimony of Li Hungchang (downgrading the "Land of the Brown Robbers" as a "vile spot," etc.) which any knowledgeable graduate student can identify from its spurious tone as culled from the notorious Mannix whole-cloth forgery of 1913. (See p. 262 of "Memoirs of Li Hung Chang," edited by William Francis Mannix, with an introduction by Hon. John W. Foster, Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1913.) Nevertheless, by virtue of the authority claimed by international lawyers, Mr. Reisman concludes that "China cannot legally claim Taiwan or the Taiwanese."

At the end of the spectrum is an advertisement in the New Republic of April 8 from the National Review: "The time has come for the Government of Taiwan to secede from China * * *. Taiwan has governed itself for 23 years, disturbing not world peace, indeed earning the admiration of all who have come to know it." Here the Nationalist China of Chiang Kai-shek has been deserted, and “Taiwan” taken its place as an anti-Communist bastion.

Let us note a curious fact. In Eastern Europe the Czechs are a proud and deserving people with a long history as an independent state which goes back to the kings of Bohemia and John Hus in 1300. The Czechs currently are grievously subjugated by Soviet Russia in a most flagrant denial of self-determination, yet we Americans do nothing about it. Why not? Because self-determination for Czechoslovakia could be secured only through war with the Soviet Union.

Evidently, self-determination is not the only principle governing our international relations, and the denial of it in Taiwan is by no means the most serious case of denial that confronts us in the world. We have acquiesced for 26 years in the nationalist domination of Taiwan, not exactly an exercise of self-determination. Why should we now suddenly rush to the rescue?

1 John K. Fairbank is director of the East Asian Research Center at Harvard.

Without denying the undoubted value of international law whenever it can be made effective, should we not base our policy also on more than legal considerations? If we note that the American public have in time past gone to war partly to defend foreign peoples against invasion and tyranny, whether in Belgium in 1914, South Korea in 1950, or South Vietnam in 1965, would it not be wise to pause and consider this question in all its bearings before we take on the selfdetermination of Taiwan as a national goal? The projection of our own emotions and ideals has taken many forms in the outer world but not always with success. Each case, after all, is very different from the others, and before we reason from analogy or precedent, we should try to get the facts straight.

Looked at historically, the current American attempt to disengage from the east Asian mainland, if that is indeed what we are trying to do, would bring to a close a century and a half of increasing intervention there. The rise and decline of Western expansion in this area has no doubt roughly reflected the comparative superiority of firepower of the states that have intervened there. Thus the British in the time of the opium war intervened with gunboats and imposed an unequal treaty system of special privilege as the most effective way of opening China to Western contact and enterprise. The treaty system lasted from 1842 to 1943, by which time the United States had taken the place of Britain as the major Western power involved. Touay, the nonsuccess of our Vietnam intervention in the cause of self-determination has combined with other factors to put us in a mood for pulling back, even though in the late 20th century we must no doubt still participate in some kind of international security arrangements in the western Pacific. Mr. Nixon's opening toward China may be seen as an attempt to work out realistic great power relations in this area, where China is a nuclear power and will no doubt grow stronger.

To speak of "power" as the arbiter of international affairs is of course meaningless unless one includes in the picture the moral, psychological, and spiritual elements that move peoples to action. The argument for our going slow on the question of Taiwan's self-determination rests on three considerations concerning respectively China, the people of Taiwan, and the United States.

Mainland China confronts us with a phenomenon never met before: 800 million people under one government, acknowledging one sovereignty, accepting the mandate of Peking as the capital of the state. This is probably the single most important phenomenon of modern politics. What holds this vast mass of people toether, in an area older and bigger than all of fragmented Europe? The external menaces seem far from sufficient. The internal coercions seem far from adequate. We can only conclude that these 800 million are animated by an ethos or spirit of nationalism, a sense of community or indeed of Chineseness. To call this "nationalism," using the word derived from the political divisions which arose in Europe within the culture of Christendom, is of course a terminological travesty. Judged by results, this seems to be a force much stronger than European nationalism. It combines not only the political loyalties of the people within a region but also their entire sense of culture, society, and history. The modern Chinese nation is the same as Chinese civilization, or very nearly so. The fact that this cohesive force has not been manifested in great foreign expansion is fortunate for us, but this does not lessen its power at home. Every recent traveler to China has stressed the sense of togetherness, the inward-looking concern for the Chinese realm, the pride in its achievements. In thinking about Taiwan it is surely the beginning of wisdom to note the unanimity with which Chinese leaders in power, both there and on the mainland, have laid claim to Taiwan as part of this Chinese realm. In short, the Chinese people seem to have a sense of nationalism at least as powerful as the patriotism that defended Britain against the Nazis or animated the Russians in World War II, and this Chinese feeling seems to be fairly well fixed on the idea that Taiwan is Chinese by history, culture, language, "race," and other criteria.

As to the feelings of the Taiwanese-Chinese people themselves, we are woefully in the dark. If the American Embassy in Taipei has any real idea of popular sentiment, certainly no evidence from the scene has been vouchsafed to the American public. The following facts are worth considering: Under the Ch'ing dynasty after 1683, Taiwan was made a prefecture of the Province of Fukien. Its political age is about like that of the Thirteen Colonies in this country, not old for China but old enough on a world scale. Taiwan was made an independent province in 1885. For a couple of centuries, Chinese officials were dispatched from the mainland to govern the island. They dealt with its rebellions, and dealt also with foreign traders throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. No one who knows any history will deny that the writ of Peking ran on the island down to 1895.

The 50 years of Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945 of course produced a generation that had little memory of Chinese rule and did have a considerable bicultural experience as Japanese colonials. The common language continued to be the Fukien dialect of Chinese, but many people learned Japanese too and a fortunate few were educated in Japan. From this group emerged a few leaders who early represented the idea of an independent Taiwan. Outraged at the callous and brutal treatment given the Taiwanese-Chinese by the nationalist government after 1945, these leaders became true patriots for Formosan independence. But the question remains, how many are they? And what do they represent in popular feeling? Their kind of bicultural individual who speaks both Chinese and Japanese is no longer being produced by the historical circumstances. Were these leaders a single generation cast up by history?

As to the political sentiments of the 12 or 13 million Taiwanese-Chinese today, we know of their many resentments against the mainlander Chinese of the nationalist regime. What we do not know is the degree of their pride in the achievements of the People's Republic across the water, or the depth of their consciousness as being themselves Chinese, part of that great realm. The idea of self-determination is much more a product of European-American experience than it is of the Chinese tradition. It remains a question whether the Chinese on Taiwan, even when most disgruntled with the present regime and most antiCommunist in their political views, are not at the same time quite ambivalent, inclined to acknowledge the grandeur of the Chinese realm under Mao, and less inclined perhaps than we would think to cut themselves off from it. Taiwan is certainly no Czechoslovakia. It has not been a separate kingdom in the past, with its own rulers, language, and culture. Rather it has been a Chinese frontier region, detached only in times of central weakness.

Another factor within Taiwan will be the degree to which a pro-Communist social political movement may now develop, convinced of the grandeur and efficacy of the Maoist way, even for Taiwan. The energetic self-confidence now reported on the mainland may prove highly infectious and give the political scene on Taiwan a different hue. We can hardly prejudge this obscure situation. From the point of view of the United States, once we have given up confrontation and containment as a militant posture defying the continued existence of the Maoist regime, we are presumably interested in maintaining equable relations or at least avoiding warfare with the People's Republic. In the Shanghai communique, we reaffirmed our "interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, [the United States] affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. Forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes."

This amounts to an effort to get out of the middle in the Chinese civil war and let it die away. It does not necessarily sell Chiang Kai-shek or his regime or the people of Taiwan down the river since they are still in a position to negotiate with the mainland from a position of some strength. We should know by this time that the way of the mediator is hard. Any reintervention by the United States to demand an exercise in self-determination by such means as a plebiscite in Taiwan is likely to bring the weight of Chinese patriotic feeling down upon us. We have tried to say that we outsiders cannot settle the Taiwan question. Let us cling to this way out and avoid getting back into the crossfire. As a matter of practical politics, the one thing that could energize Chinese antiforeignism and a sense of Taiwan's unity with the mainland even among the Taiwanese-Chinese population might well be an American reintervention to settle their fate. Legal considerations bulk rather small compared with the moral, spiritual, and psychological claims exerted by 800 million Chinese upon the 15 million who are a hundred miles offshore. The pressures of sentiment involved are enormous and of the same nature as those that we invoke in the name of self-determination: what do the people concerned want?

The weakness of an interventionist position is at once evident if we note how Peking's propaganda has stigmatized the Taiwan independence movement as a catspaw of foreign interests-Japanese or American. When we express a concern for self-determination, we constitute indeed a foreign interest. Our expression of concern may represent our highest ideals and humanitarianism, but it is easily turned against us and may arouse in Chinese patriots of all camps a greater degree of xenophobic cohesiveness against alleged Western imperialism. Assuming that we have the wit to stay out of the question of Taiwan's future

and can avoid projecting our own tradition of self-determination upon a different cultural scheme, we still cannot wash our hands of the matter. Until some successor situation has been worked out among the Chinese parties in some fashion, there is a strong moral argument against our renouncing the mutual security treaty of 1954; to do so before that time would undoubtedly produce insecurity, uncertainty, and trouble. The existence of the treaty is a sort of guarantee that the Chinese arrangements concerning Taiwan will not be made by force. Yet we have an interest in seeing that some arrangements are in fact made and that they lead to a successor situation in which Taiwan's relation to the mainland is practically defined.

Here we have an opportunity to use our heads and take account of history. One fact is that central sovereignty clearly enunciated and locally accepted is not incompatible with a degree of local autonomy in government within the Chinese realm. Do not go to the lawyers to get an understanding of this. The definitions of international law stemming from the European mind and interstate relations are not a magic touchstone to Chinese affairs and arrangements. If we can keep the lawyers from trying to apply their blueprints, we may look forward to a situation where Taiwan is no threat to Peking and is usefully related to Peking in a way satisfactory to the bulk of the people on Taiwan. Let us not look to the past for our entire repertoire of international arrangements. The Puerto Rican anomaly in American constitutional life should give us hope. Hong Kong is another example of an anomalous situation that works. The fact is that Taiwan seems destined to look to the continent politically but to look to the outside world economically. The eventual arrangements will be thoroughly Chinese, and neither Yale nor even Harvard professors are likely to have the answer.

APPENDIX 5

[From Foreign Affairs, April 1972]

CHINA AND TAIWAN: THE ECONOMIC ISSUES

(By Robert W. Barnett)

Can Mao or the inheritors of Mao's authority entertain the possibility of some "separateness" for any Chinese within his egalitarian One China world? The answer to this question will influence Peking's attitudes toward peaceful coexistence with Taipei, intellectual and cultural diversities at home, and possibilities for future organization of China's economic system.

After a 20-year tradition of relentless mutual hostility, the "recognition" by the United States of the People's Republic of China, implicit in Dr. Henry Kissinger's July 8-11 visit to Peking, produced a sudden and great need for diplomatic recalculation throughout the world. It was inevitable, thereafter, that the People's Republic of China be taken into the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations. And now President Nixon's February conversations with Chinese authorities have focused attention upon what Washington and Peking can agree to do about Taiwan-with Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo, not to mention Moscow, New Delhi, and Southeast Asian capitals, likely to perceive transcendent strategic implications in that transaction.

At a press conference last November 30, Dr. Kissinger said: "Our position is that the ultimate disposition, the ultimate relationship of Taiwan to the People's Republic of China, should be settled by direct negotiations between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China * * *. This is our policy, but it is without prejudice, as I have pointed out, to existing commitments." Last spring the White House had scoffed at the possibility that Taipei and Peking could engage in useful dialog on such a subject. Which expression of White House attitude is a better reflection of reality depends upon how Peking comes to judge the acceptability of allowing Taiwan some separateness, and under what arrangement. The United Nations has settled the issue of representation: Peking represents China. The international community now turns to consideration of security in the Taiwan Strait. As seen from Peking, that issue relates to U.S. commitments to and military presence on Taiwan, and to Japan's military potential which since the 1969 Nixon-Sato communique on the reversion of Okinawa, could be seen to be looming over the Taiwan Strait. However, another pressing issue has been largely ignored: the accommodation of the divergent economic purposes and systems which Peking and Taipei have pursued within their goal of one China.

II

Peking and Taipei are alike in their readiness to support large and costly military systems to cope with their differing defense requirements. Otherwise, however, Peking and Taipei have embraced radically different conceptions of how to cope with the needs of their situations. The success of their methods has been measured in terms of growth of gross national product and trade, social development, popular welfare, and political democracy. Leaving aside judgment on their comparative devotion to democracy, what we know suggests that Peking and Taipei can be seen to have been committed to two generally different methods of organizing development which greatly interest economists and planners throughout the world.

Taiwan's commitment to sustained economic growth is outward looking and depends on trade, and its performance has attracted respect. Peking's method of development has been self-reliant and "culture-permeated" full employment, and its willingness to sacrifice growth of gross national product in that endeavor will attract increasing attention, and not just from poorer countries. Dr. Sabuto Okita, Japan's representative on the Pearson Committee, suggests that all countries concerned with pathological urbanization, with high rates of unemploy