Establishing the AIT, which recently opened its new complex in Neihu, took a combination of diplomatic resilience and timely penny-pinching.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/01
By: Don Shapiro
In the lead-up to President Jimmy Carter’s announcement on December 15, 1978 that the United States would switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, only cursory discussion had taken place within the U.S. government about the nature of the future American relationship with Taiwan. The administration had held its plans close to the chest to prevent Taiwan’s friends in Congress from trying to undermine the change in policy.
As a result, even many observers who accepted the need for “normalization” of U.S. relations with China were distressed by the abruptness of the initiative and the apparent disregard for the impact on America’s longstanding friend and ally, the Republic of China on Taiwan.
“Through the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, resident meiguo [American] businessmen voiced surprise and disappointment at Carter’s move,” the Hong Kong-based magazine Asiaweekreported at the time. “But they also expressed faith in Taiwan’s future. Said a Chamber statement: ‘We expect U.S. investment in Taiwan and the trade between our two countries not only to continue but to increase.’”
The joint communique issued by the United States and China stated that within the context of recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, “the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.” But precisely how those unofficial relations would be carried out was unclear. [FULL STORY]