THE NEW CHINA POLICY: ITS IMPACT ON THE II. The New China Policy: Its Impact on the Republic of China WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1972 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 2:10 p.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Cornelius E. Gallagher (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. GALLAGHER. The subcommittee will come to order. We welcome you gentlemen here this afternoon. Today we continue our inquiry into the impact of the new United States-China policy on our traditional friendships and alliances in Asia. Our focus will be the Republic of China. INTRODUCTION If the Chair may start off on a personal note, I am pleased at the quiet dignity and restraint with which the Republic of China has taken both its unfortunate expulsion from the United Nations and the idle speculation about its future. It is clear to all the world that the Republic of China fully intends to continue its remarkable pattern of economic and social development. In addition, the Chiang Kai-shek government has shown itself to be adept and flexible in its diplomatic initiatives to broaden its range of friends and trading partners, as well as raise the sense of admiration and respect of its friends here in the United States. We are fortunate to have with us today a distinguished panel of China experts-Prof. David Rowe of Yale University; Mr. James Grant, President of the Overseas Development Council, who has appeared before this subcommittee in another capacity and for whom we have high regard; Professor Reisman of the Yale Law School; and Mr. Robert Barnett, who is Vice President of the Asia Society-all with very distinguished careers. I might add that Mr. Grant and Mr. Barnett are appearing in their individual capacities rather than as spokesmen for their organizations. We will hear first from Professor Rowe whose knowledge of developments on Taiwan is exceptional because he has been visiting there at least twice a year for some time. Professor Rowe will be offering to the subcommittee a report of conditions on Taiwan as he found them just prior to the President's trip to Peking, as well as his conclusions about (45) 85-381-72 the impact of the new United States-China policy on the Republic of -China. Next we will hear from an old friend of this subcommittee, former State Department and AID official James Grant. Mr. Grant is presently pursuing his lifelong involvement with economic development as president of the Overseas Development Council. He will present testimony documenting the remarkable pattern of economic development which Taiwan has achieved. Professor Reisman of Yale Law School will offer his conclusions about "Who Owns Taiwan," which incidentally is the subject of his article which will appear in the spring issue of the Yale Law Journal. I hope I am not detracting from the suspense by reporting that Professor Reisman calls for a plebiscite for Taiwan. In the cleanup slot we are fortunate to have a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, Mr. Robert Barnett, who has long had the high regard of this subcommittee and also on the Senate side. Mr. Barnett's thesis is that Taiwan can be peacefully transformed into a province of the People's Republic but with a considerable measure of autonomy. As a sidelight I might note that three of our four China specialists were born there: Mr. Barnett in Shanghai, Professor Rowe in Nanking, and Mr. Grant in what is now Peking. And Professor Reisman makes up for it by having law degrees from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Strasbourg as well as Yale. I suggest that Professor Rowe lead off, followed by Mr. Grant, then Professor Reisman and Mr. Barnett, if that is agreeable to our panelists. We will hold all questions until Mr. Barnett is finished, and then the subcommittee will question the witnesses as a panel. Given the considerable range of views, I would suggest that the subcommittee encourage the witnesses to comment on one another's testimony so we can have a general exchange. As we have four witnesses today, could each of you limit your oral presentation to 15 minutes at the outside? Your full statement will, of course, be submitted for the record. On behalf of the subcommittee, I again welcome you. Professor Rowe, you may proceed as you choose, reading, summarizing, and adding any additional thoughts you have. Please proceed. STATEMENT OF DAVID N. ROWE, PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY BIOGRAPHY Mr. Rowe was born in Nanking and later attended the College of Chinese Studies in Peking. A China specialist, his assignments have included Special Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to China from 1941 to 1942, Visiting Professor at National Taiwan University and Asia Foundation representative in Taipei from 1954 to 1956, and member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Teachers of Chinese Language. Dr. Rowe has been a professor of political science at Yale University since 1950 and his books include "China Among the Powers," "China: An Area Manual," and "Modern China, a Brief History." In 1968 Dr. Rowe served as national cochairman of scholars for Nixon-Agnew. Mr. Rowe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to read a statement which I am quite sure will not take more than the time limit you have allotted. (The prepared statement of Professor Rowe appears on p. 50.) The Taiwan question, as it is usually misnamed, has since World War II contained a component question relative to the ownership of, and/or sovereignty over, the island of Taiwan and adjacent islands. Í want to put this question into a perspective of history, law, and other facts. MAINLAND CONTROL OF TAIWAN Historically, Taiwan has been progressively taken over by Chinese immigration from the mainland, from native aborigines of Malaysian ethnic and cultural affiliation. This Chinese takeover began several hundred years ago, and was an extension into Taiwan and adjacent islands of the age-old Chinese processes of expansion and territorial acquisition, written up authoritatively by Prof. H. Wiens in his book "China's March Toward the Tropics," where the processes involved have been carefully analyzed and set forth. In the Chinese system, good agricultural lands in the possession of non-Chinese peoples were invaded and taken over, the original inhabitants being driven off into the mountainous neighboring terrain which was of little or no interest to Chinese agriculturalists. There they were allowed to remain, mostly unaffected in anyway by Chinese culture, including Chinese Government. The Chinese attitude was that these barbarians were almost totally unredeemable from a Chinese point of view, that they could hardly be sinified with any chance of success, and that therefore they would be left alone as long as they did not try to regain their lost lands. In modern times there have been in Mainland China as many as 20 million or more of these non-Chinese people, living mostly under their own tribal culture, with distinct languages and material civilization, for the most part autonomous politically. During the entire period of contact in modern times, the Western Powers accepted this Chinese order of things and, with very few exceptions, never challenged the Chinese claim to sovereignty over these peoples or their territory. JAPANESE TITLE TO TAIWAN The exception to this general rule, of concern here, is the attempt by the Japanese during the middle part of the 19th century to challenge Chinese total sovereignty over Taiwan on the basis that the Chinese Government there could not and did not claim to control aboriginal areas in Taiwan or the aboriginal people there, whose actions against Japanese shipwrecked mariners on Taiwan's coasts were often aggressively hostile. This involved not only shipwrecked Japanese, but nationals of other countries in the same unfortunate situation. The Japanese, quoting Western principles of international law, which they had learned from the West, asserted that if the Chinese authorities could not control the whole territory of Taiwan and all the people there, they-the Japanese-would assert their own claim to jurisdiction. They actually did send military forces to eastern Taiwan and engaged in punitive action against the aboriginal hostiles there, with an asserted claim that they could take possession and assume ownership of the territories there which the Chinese authorities claimed sovereignty over but which they admittedly did not control under their rule. However, both the Chinese Government in Peking and the foreign powers were opposed to Japan's actions along this line. As a result of protracted negotiations in Peking, the Japanese withdrew both their forces and their claims against the Chinese system of control and the Chinese system of political culture in Taiwan, and by the early 1870's of the 19th century Taiwan was generally recognized by all powers to belong in toto to the Chinese Empire, of which it was considered an integral part. However, the Chinese never did try to assert their control over aboriginal territory or the people there, in Taiwan, any more than they ever had over similar territories and people on the mainland. This has all been written up by Dr. S. Yen in her book entitled "Taiwan in China's Foreign Relations 1836-74." When the Japanese defeated China in the first Sino-Japanese war, the Treaty of Shimonoseki, 1895, transferred title to Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan as a spoils of war. Japanese title thereafter derived from previous Chinese ownership. The Japanese thereafter tried to extend their rule to the mountainous aboriginal territory of western Taiwan and the people there, but without complete success. In desperation, they finally resorted to sealing off the central part of that area behind, in some areas, an electrified fence, leaving the aborigines there to rule themselves. From that autonomous territory the aborigines often sallied forth in rebellion and war against the Japanese authorities, who were confronted over a 50-year period with an average of one small rebellion every 6 months and a big one every year. Some of these affairs involved the Chinese inhabitants of the islands. Thus the Japanese could do no more in this respect than to adopt for themselves the Chinese position on the aborigines, namely, that lack of effective control over them and their lands did not vitiate Japanese title to the whole area of Taiwan and the Pescadores. No one outside ever did challenge Japanese title to or sovereignty over these territories during the whole 50 years of Japanese colonial ownership thereof by insisting that such sovereignty depended upon effective general control in any part of the area which otherwise would not be Japanese. Today, any challenge to sovereignty over Taiwan and the Pescadores based upon the previous (to 1895) lack of effective Chinese governmental control in or over any part of those islands would necessarily take the form of asserting that the people the Chinese displaced there and from whom they took almost all the territory were in fact the proper owners of the whole of the territory, namely the aboriginal inhabitants who were more or less all over the islands several hundred years ago. No such assertion is responsibly advanced in any quarter, any more than is the assertion that North America should properly revert to the American Indians from whom it was for the most part forcibly taken by migrants from other and remote regions during the past several hundred years. As far as can be known, there is now no material dissidence among the aboriginal elements in Taiwan, who are now much better off under conditions of Chinese rule than they ever felt they were under the Japanese. CAIRO AGREEMENT ON JAPANESE-OCCUPIED CHINA But there are other features of this matter. When in Cairo in 1943 the agreement was made that after the war all territories previously taken from China by Japan would be returned to "the Republic of China" (the title of a government), and when the Japanese accepted these terms as later included in the Potsdam agreement and as embodied in the instrument of surrender signed in Tokyo Bay on the battleship Missouri, the way was opened to the recovery of Taiwan and the Pescadores by the legitimate government of China, the Republic of China. JAPAN-REPUBLIC OF CHINA TREATY OF 1952 Such recovery took the concrete form of military occupation there upon Japanese surrender by armed forces of the Republic of China. This was further legitimized, not by any unilateral statement by the government of the Republic of China, but by Japan and China together, in the postwar treaty between them, dated April 28, 1952, under which the two countries agreed to abrogate all previous treaties between them. This included, of course, the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, under which China had transferred Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan as a spoils of war. In addition, and among other things, the 1952 treaty provided that Japan would pay no post-World War II reparations to China. This treaty is still in effect. Neither government has renounced it or asserted its abrogation, and this is one of the most fundamental stumbling blocks to normalization of relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China which controls the mainland." The government of the Republic of China now controls Taiwan, the Pescadores, and the offshore island complexes of Quemoy (Kinmen) and Matsu. Its armed forces occupy these areas effectively and have defended them against attack by the Chinese Communists in the past. The U.S. Government is pledged to assist in sustaining the security of at least Taiwan and the Pescadores, and this pledge has been renewed repeatedly at the highest levels of our Government since the return of President Nixon from his 8-day trip to Peking. We are thus participating in the Republic of China's policy of preventing Chinese Communist takeover in these islands. And we are thus effectively reinforcing the control there of the government of the Republic of China, while recognizing, as almost all Chinese do, both on the mainland and elsewhere, that these territories are an integral part of China. TAIWANESE GAINS UNDER REPUBLIC OF CHINA Since Chinese reoccupation of Taiwan and the Pescadores after World War II, there has been substantial development of internal self-government by the almost entirely Chinese population there, with |