[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6403-6404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



              NUANCE MATTERS, GETTING TAIWAN POLICY RIGHT

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as we were reminded yesterday, words matter 
in diplomacy. Wednesday morning, the President of the United States 
appeared on national television in an interview taped Tuesday night 
with Charles Gibson of ABC News. In that interview, the President was 
asked if the United States had an obligation to defend Taiwan if it was 
attacked by China.
  President Bush replied, ``Yes, we do, and the Chinese must understand 
that. Yes, I would.''
  The interviewer pressed further, asking, ``With the full force of the 
American military?''
  President Bush replied, ``Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend 
itself.'' He did not elaborate at that time.
  A few hours later, the President appeared to back off this startling 
new commitment, stressing in an interview on CNN that the United States 
would continue to abide by the Taiwan Relations Act and the One China 
policy followed by each of the past five Presidential Administrations.
  I want to make clear that I believe the security of Taiwan to be a 
vital interest of the United States.
  Senator Helms and I are among a handful of current members of the 
U.S. Senate who were around to vote for the Taiwan Relations Act when 
it was introduced 22 years ago.
  And I remain as committed today as I was then to the peaceful 
resolution of the Taiwan question.
  And because of my strong support for Taiwan, I was inclined to 
believe that the President had made an honest, and mostly harmless, 
mistake yesterday, especially when the State Department issued a 
clarification stressing that U.S. policy remained unchanged. State 
Department spokesman Phil Reeker said, ``Our policy hasn't changed 
today, it didn't change yesterday, and it didn't change last year, it 
hasn't changed in terms of what we have followed since 1979 with the 
passage of the Taiwan Relations Act.''
  But by the end of the day, senior national security officials at the 
White House were singing a different tune, insisting that the President 
meant what he said in the morning interview.
  The President's National Security Adviser claimed that, ``the Taiwan 
Relations act makes very clear that the U.S. has an obligation that 
Taiwan's peaceful way of life is not upset by force.'' And a White 
House Aide said, ``Nothing in the act precludes the President from 
saying that the U.S. would do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend 
herself.''
  As my colleagues may know, the Taiwan Relations Act obligates the 
United States to provide Taiwan ``with such defense articles and 
defense services . . . as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain 
a sufficient self-defense capability.''
  It also states that any attempt to determine the future of Taiwan by 
other than peaceful means would constitute a ``threat to the peace and 
security of the Western Pacific area'' and would be, ``of grave concern 
to the United States.''
  Finally, it mandates that in the event of, ``any threat to the 
security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan and 
any danger to the interests of the United States arising therefrom, the 
President and the Congress shall determine, in accordance with 
constitutional processes, appropriate action by the United States in 
response to any such danger.''
  Contrary to the President's statement to Charles Gibson, the United 
States is not obligated to defend Taiwan, ``With the full force of the 
American military,'' and hasn't been since we abrogated the 1954 Mutual 
Defense Treaty signed by President Eisenhower and ratified by the 
United States Senate.
  And contrary to the White House spokesman's comments, the President 
does not have the authority unilaterally to commit U.S. forces to the 
defense of Taiwan. Under the Constitution, as well as the provisions of 
the Taiwan Relations Act, that is a matter which the President must 
bring to the American people and to the Congress of the United States.
  During the campaign, President Bush implicity criticized the policy 
of ``strategic ambiguity'' which has governed the use of American 
forces to defend Taiwan in the event of a conflict with China for more 
than 20 years since the United States abrogated the 1954 Mutual Defense 
Treaty with Taiwan and normalized diplomatic relations with China.
  The point of that policy, which I support, was to retain the right to 
use force to defend Taiwan, while reserving to the United States all 
the decision-making authority about the circumstances in which we 
might, or might not, commit U.S. forces.
  Otherwise, the United States might find itself dragged into a 
conflict between China and Taiwan even in the event of a unilateral 
Taiwanese declaration of independence, something the President said 
yesterday he would not support.
  This policy of strategic ambiguity was consistent with our One China 
policy and also with our desire that the Taiwan question be resolved 
only through peaceful means.
  Well, today I guess we have a new policy, and I am calling it the 
policy of ``ambiguous strategic ambiguity.''
  What worries me is not just what the President said, but the utter 
disregard for the role of Congress and the vital interest of our key 
Pacific Allies, specifically Japan.
  Perhaps the President is unaware that without using U.S. bases in 
Japan, we would be hard-pressed to make good on his commitment to use 
U.S. forces to defend Taiwan in the event of a conflict with China.
  Perhaps he is unaware of how sensitive an issue this is for the 
Japanese government, which has taken great pains to avoid explicitly 
extending the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance to a Taiwan contingency.
  I was quick to praise the President's deft handling of the dispute 
with China over the fate of the downed U.S. surveillance aircraft.
  But in this case, as in his rocky summit meeting with South Korean 
President Kim Daejung, the President has damaged U.S. credibility with 
our allies and sewn confusion throughout the Pacific Rim.
  Words matter. Nuance matters.
  Other events, the challenge of engaging North Korea, the emergence of 
a reformist prime minister in Japan, and the threat of political 
instability in Indonesia, will surely test America's resolve and 
diplomatic agility in the Pacific during the months ahead.

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