[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 5, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2293-E2294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO SUPPORT TAIWAN

                                 ______


                        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 

[[Page E 2294]]
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.

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 28, 1995]

                         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.
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Dec. 1, 1995]

                        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.

                          ____________________