 Thank you very much, Chris. It's a great pleasure for Brookings to co-host this event with CSIS. It's a particular pleasure for us to meet in this wonderful space that you have. Congratulations on this fascinating facility. I'd like to thank Chris and his staff, Bonnie, Nicole, and Jacqueline. I'd like to thank people on my staff, Kevin, Aileen, and Franklin. But it's my greatest pleasure to introduce Ambassador Lucian Shun, who is the representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. Do I have that right? Representative of the Office. I'm sorry. An old name. No, I had too little sleep. It's not the long name. Lucian is an old friend. He is a distinguished and prominent member of Taiwan's Foreign Service. He and I first met some 30 years ago, but we're not counting because it just reveals our age. He has served both in Taipei most prominently as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has represented the ROC in Belgium and also to the European Union at that time. He was representative in London, and now we are fortunate to have him here in Washington working to build and enhance U.S. relations with Taiwan. It is only right and proper that he kick off our meeting today, but it's also proper because he is a font of historical knowledge. He is really Taiwan's historical memory and institutional memory. It is a great honor for me to welcome Lucian and ask you to join me in welcoming him here. Thank you. Last time, a few months ago, we did a reverse way. Remember, you went to Oxford University and I did an introduction about you. When I told the audience, I said you better not let me continue because if I continue introducing Dr. Richard Bush, I would have become the keynote speaker and he would have been doing discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, we really want to thank you and thank the CSIS and Brookings for hosting this event. Let me tell you, this is probably the 14th event in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, T.R.A. If I may, excuse me, if I may recount how many activities we already have had, starting with two hearings on the hill, one on the center side and the health side, one resolution, later turned into a legislation and then one reception on Capitol Hill and one dinner, hosted by me at Twin Oaks. One joint letter by 52 senators to President Obama urging the president to expand dialogue with Taiwan and to continue support Taiwan's freedom, democracy and economic prosperity. And then one video conference chaired by my good friend here and also we had a pleasure of President Ma talking to us through electronic means. And then we have six seminars including this one. I don't know how many more we still have, but if we keep going like this, we will go right into the separation of 36th anniversary without a break. But it also shows how important Taiwan Relations Act is and I'm so happy that President Ma pointed out this morning I think my first job is trying to follow up with the conclusion of President Ma's talks the other day when in the conclusion he said with admission to the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership and RCEP, a top priority for my administration. I hope on this anniversary of the TRA that the United States will join us in this effort. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think we are very delighted and very grateful that the United States responded in kind. Actually, before that the U.S. already indicated is welcome to Taiwan's interest in joining TPP as expressed by the Assistant Secretary for U.S. Affairs, Mr. Daniel Russo and his deputy, King Moe, you know, when they gave the testimonies on Capitol Hill, respectively, on the Senate and outside. This morning I want to tell you really why Taiwan deserves a place in TPP. And then without Taiwan it's unthinkable that TPP would be formed. And then without Taiwan it really would be detrimental not only to the interests of Taiwan but the interests of the United States and the interests of the rest of the members of TPP. If I may use the most updated trade figures just put out by the Census Bureau of the United States Department of Commerce to tell you now Taiwan is no longer the 12th largest trading partner of the United States. Taiwan being up by one place, Taiwan is number 11 now according to the figures for the first quarter of this year. Now, I always love to ask, now who is the one ahead of Taiwan and who is the one behind Taiwan? My dear friends, the one ahead of Taiwan is Brazil. Now you know how big Brazil is. Population-wise they are nine times the size of Taiwan's population. They are about 206 million, we only 23 billion. Territorial-wise, my dear friends, they have 6.6 million square miles. They are 230 times the size of Taiwan but they are only a little bigger than Taiwan as a trading partner to the United States. So they are number 10, we are number 11. After us is Netherlands and you know how advanced Netherlands is and how old it is as a trading power. After that was India, you know how big India is. Population-wise they are exactly 50 times, 5-0. They have 1.5 billion, we have 23 million. Now, if you let Taiwan join TPP today, TPP today has about 12 participants. Taiwan would have been the fifth largest economy, bigger than more than two-thirds of it. If someday TPP be expanded to cover all the Pacific Rim countries, which is about 50 of them, Taiwan would still have been the eighth largest among the 50s because the difference would only be, as I said Brazil is ahead of Taiwan and then South Korea would have been ahead of Taiwan and mainland China would have been ahead of Taiwan. So if someday if the TPP be succeeded to cover all the Pacific Rim countries, Taiwan would have been the eighth largest. We would be bigger than more than 80% of the TPP members. Now, do we deserve a seat in the TPP? As I said, while I was in EU, I usually tell my European friends, I said if you let Taiwan join European Union, we would have been the ninth largest economy among the 27 that time, bigger than two-thirds of EU member states. We're going to be a little smaller than Sweden, but we're bigger than Austria between those two. Now, this is only the quantity. Let me talk about quality. I still remember David, my classmate, we remember in our primary school, our textbooks taught us that top four Taiwan export products were bananas, sugar, rice, and tea. My friends, today the top four Taiwan export items are IC, LCD, liquid crystal display, telephones, and the semi-conductor devices. That's how much Taiwan has changed. That's what kind of trading partner Taiwan is. So I would say that excluding Taiwan, totally it'd be irrational, unreasonable, and it'd be detrimental to the interests, not only to the people of Taiwan, but the people of the United States and the people of the rest of the TPP member countries. Now, of course, today a lot of things are not just made in Taiwan, they're probably made in China, but by Taiwan investors. And this is why I think there's one more reason for Taiwan to be included in TPP. Now, as Dr. Richard Bush said, I spent many years in Europe after I left here 11 years ago. I was chief of mission in Geneva and I was transferred to Brussels as ambassador or representative to EU and Belgium. And then I was called back to be the deputy foreign minister and then I was transferred to London to be the representative to the United Kingdom, also to the EBRD, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. Now, if you think that something unusual in my accent is just because I just transferred from London. You like it? Very good. Now, coming from London and having spent so many years in Europe, I would introduce the European model to evaluate the situation across the Taiwan Strait. I would say today a better word, probably not perfect, a better word or more super word to describe the situation across Taiwan Strait. It's neither unification, independence or whatever, but integration. I think we've been seeing economic, social, cultural integration between two sides of Taiwan Strait be moving on so fast and to the benefit of the people on both sides of Taiwan Strait. And through very careful management and US support, I would say in this integration process that the Taiwan sometimes could get some upper hands and enlist some equal footing. I'll give you a few examples. For example, I don't know whether you know this or not. Before President Ma came to office six years ago, there were zero direct flights between two sides of Taiwan Strait. Today, there are 1,656 direct flights a week between two sides of Taiwan Strait and we're flying to 64 Chinese cities or destinations. Taiwan has become the largest origin of external flights into mainland China. We just outnumber Hong Kong, flying to only 50 cities, we're flying to 64 Chinese cities. What does it mean? That means we have probably the best access to mainland China. And let me clarify something. You'll probably see in some of our materials saying that every week we have 828 direct flights. My dear friends, this time only about 10 days ago I was in Taipei. I checked with Taipei's Haiji Hui Strait Exchange Foundation and they told me the way they count the flights is a wrong trip. But actually by international standard, you know, outbound is one flight, inbound is one flight. So actually you have to time two because 828 times two is 1,656 flights a week. Now this is aviation. Shipping. My dear friends, can you imagine that mainland China altogether has opened 72 harbors for Taiwan ships? Most of them are not international harbors. Starting from Dandong, where is Dandong? Dandong is in the mouth of Yalu River and where is Yalu River? It's a border river between China and North Korea. All the way down to Sanya, where is Sanya? Sanya is South China Sea. And then 72 harbors include 17 river harbors along the Yangtze River. Excuse me. Along the Yangtze River. I was half jokingly told the British diplomat when this agreement was made. I said we virtually revived your ancestors' rights to have this navigation rights along the Yangtze River because in old days only the British ships can go into Yangtze River. And then I told him the last river harbour is called Chenling Ji. Where's Chenling Ji? Chenling Ji is at the mouth of Dongting Lake. There's a joint of Dongting Lake and Yangtze River. It's already 2,000 kilometres in length of China. And this British diplomat, so funny, he called me back the next day. He said you didn't get two harbors that my ancestors got. They are deeper. He's right. They are Wanxian in Sichuan and Chongqing. And then I said it's not because we didn't get it. It's because they built a three-gorge dam there. That part of Yangtze River no longer suitable for big ships. Now, having said that, I think you can tell that I dare to say the rise of China is a given fact. But Taiwan probably has the best gateway to the rise of China. And I want you to keep in mind, I probably a little daring, but I want to keep in mind there are three largest for Taiwan, which are Taiwan is the largest single external source of investment into China. I think they are saying that because you look at the Taiwan business, sometimes we don't even know how much money they put in because it's something that goes through the third countries or third places. And you take Foxconn as an example. One company, Foxconn, has created more than one million jobs in mainland China. So we are the largest single external source of investment into China. I didn't say foreign, external. And then we also, the largest single source of knowledge about China. We know them because we used to be one. We shared the same history, same culture, same language, almost the same everything except for the political partition. And then we also are the largest single external source of influence over China. You look at the Chinese people, how much they interest in our political elections. You look at the people, the tourists from mainland China, how much they enjoyed our political talk shows during the prime time when they visit Taiwan. You look at people of mainland China, how much they want to have the Taiwanese or Republic of China passports because we enjoy 136 visa-free countries or territories to travel to. And I don't know how many for them. Apparently, we are much, much more than them. And then if we combine them together, I think you would find that Taiwan would be a great asset for the United States in the American rebalancing Asia strategy. But I have to emphasize, all this would not have been possible without the Taiwan Relations Act. This is why the Taiwan Relations Act is so important. This is why I think we need to make this commemorate activity and telling the younger generation and telling the rest of the world we played a historical milestone here. And then, if I may, I would like to quote President Ma again in his televised speech when he said the ROC, the Republic of China and the U.S. relations are now the strongest they have been in the last 35 years. With U.S. support, Taiwan has been able to improve its cross-relations and confidently engage Beijing from a position of strength, improve cross-strait relations and confidently engage Beijing. This is how important you are. And we're very glad to note that Americans also noted this constitution as it was said by, again, Assistant Secretary Daniel Russell in his Senate testimony. He said, we very much welcome and applaud the extraordinary, the extraordinary progress occurred in the cross-strait relations and the President Ma's administration, extraordinary progress. And here we seem confidently engaged. I hope you can see the corresponding situation between these two. Now, in conclusion, I would say let's hope and let's keep it going, this kind of good coordination and cooperation. And together under the TRA, I think, or even with full implementation or even expansion in the TRA, I hope we can create a win-win situation which is to the benefit of not only the people in Taiwan, but also the people in mainland China and also the people of the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ambassador Shun, for those illuminating and inspiring remarks. We now turn to our first panel, which is a look-back, historical examination. We have three outstanding people to provide that perspective. Two of my colleagues on the podium are on the stage are, were in effect present at the creation of the Taiwan Relations Act. Carl Ford to my immediate left was working for Senator Glenn at that time who was instrumental on the Senate side. Chris Nelson to my far left, no, nothing intended. No metaphor necessarily, although I did go to Berkeley. Was working for Congressman Lester Wolf, who was the chairman of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. And to my right is my good friend and former colleague David Lee, who, if you don't know it, has written the best book on the making of the Taiwan Relations Act, that's the title of it. And it provides a very clear and detailed account of what happened on a day-to-day and week-by-week basis during that period. So we're very happy to have these three perspectives, Senate, House and Taiwan. Let me start by setting the scene. The date is December 15th in the United States and the morning of December 16th in the United States. Jimmy Carter goes on television to announce the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China. The Joint Communique, President Carter's official statement and then various background briefings made clear that the United States was ending its diplomatic relations and mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China and thereby terminating its recognition of the government of the Republic of China as the government of China. The United States on January 1st would establish diplomatic relations with the PRC and recognize it as the sole legal government of China. U.S. ties with Taiwan or in the term of art the people of Taiwan would be unofficial through non-government means. The U.S. said arm sales would continue, but Chairman Wang Wafeng's statement in Beijing on the morning of the 16th made clear that China disagreed with this position and that it had gone ahead with normalization in spite of this. This whole series of events took a lot of people by surprise. It was said later that there were only five people in the U.S. government and two in our embassy or our liaison office in Beijing who had the full story of what was going on. The media which broadcast Carter's announcement didn't know it was coming. President Carter in completing the process of normalization had acted with as much secrecy as Richard Nixon had employed in starting the process. A lot was unclear at that time. First of all, what did terms like the people of Taiwan really mean? It's a term of art obviously, but it has to have some content. The United States, by these announcements, had recognized the government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government of China. Did that and a companion statement mean that we had recognized that Taiwan was part of China or part of the PRC? And although President Carter stated that the United States was continuing interest in the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue, what was the United States prepared to do to act on that interest now that we had or were in the process of terminating the Mutual Defense Treaty? And frankly, just how would these unofficial relations occur? It was clear, it became clear that legislation was going to be needed to make that happen. The administration had prepared a draft bill that focused very much on institutional concerns, creating the authority for an entity that became the American Institute in Taiwan to interact with, quote, the Taiwan authorities on behalf of, quote, the people of the United States. There was also a need to ensure that agreements already existing with Taiwan would continue, but very little was said about policy. A lot happened in the days that followed on from December 18th to December 22nd. The third plenum of the 11th Congress of the Communist Party was held in Beijing and that announced and locked in the policy that we now know of reform and opening up. After Christmas, Warren Christopher, the Deputy Secretary of State, arrived in Taipei. He was met by a mob of 10,000 people throwing eggs and other assorted implements of protest. In his conversations with Taiwan officials, Secretary Christopher discovered that Taiwan was trying as hard as possible to preserve as much officiality in the US-Taiwan relationship as possible. On January 1st, the PRC began a peace offensive through an announcement by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the content were the early seeds of what we now know as the One Country, Two Systems formula. And then on January 3rd, the 96th Congress of the United States convened, and that's where we pick up our story. And I think I'd like to start with Carl, since you were working in the Senate, the senior body of our Congress, and then we'll turn to Chris. Take that. Richard, it's a former house. You, of all people, should not. Please go ahead. Carl? Let me begin by explaining why I was actually there when the Taiwan Relations Act was written. I was not then or am I now an expert on Taiwan. My background was as a China military analyst, first at DIA and then at CIA. And I had been to Taiwan three times previously as a CIA officer. Twice to brief President Zhang Jinguo on PLA developments. And once as part of a research project, eventually turning out to be a paper that was titled something like China's Ability to Take Taiwan by Force. That, about the time that paper was published, I found out I was CIA's representative to the Foreign Affairs Congressional Fellowship Program. And so I ended up with the internship with Senator John Glenn of Ohio, who was the chairman of the East Asia Subcommittee, who everything I learned about the Senate and how Washington operates, I learned from Senator Glenn. And he certainly changed my life. I'll always be forever grateful to him. But I then stayed on after my internship for five more years as Glenn's rep on the Senate for Relations Committee on the East Asia Subcommittee. Now, the Congress was much different then, certainly from the way it is now. There was an element of distrust that you could cut with a knife. And this was a Congress that was still reeling from the Vietnam War. Almost an everyday conversation on the Foreign Relations Committee was War Powers Act and how to restrain the executive branch and the president from doing anything. And so in the summer of the Senate and then later the full Congress in September of 78 had put into congressional resolution their sort of trust and sentiment about the executive branch. And if I might read just Section B, it says, in the sense of the Congress that there should be prior consultation between the Congress and the executive branch on any proposed policy changes affecting the continuation and force of the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954. So as far as they were concerned, they had spoken and of course the executive branch would hear them and that there would be some sort of consultation. And so on mid-December, Senator Glenn called Roy Werner who was his right-hand man and longtime Foreign Relations Committee staff member and I over to his office and he said, listen guys, I found out there's going to be, the president's going to make a very important announcement today and I don't know what it is. Let's talk about and see what we come up with and so I prepared when the announcement is made. So we discussed it and I think the first issue that came up was the Arab-Israeli dispute. The Secretary of State was out in the region and we thought well maybe he was going to come back and was never going to make some announcement about that or it could be solved too. Now we did talk about China normalization but quite frankly since the chairman of the East Asia Subcommittee of the Central Relations Committee didn't have a clue what was happening. We thought it was improbable that it would be about China normalization. Well, surprise. That's what it was and it was a surprise certainly to the committee and the senators and it set the stage for everything that followed after that the president played a heavy price for that surprise. I mean even an hour's advance notice to a lot of people would have made a big difference but there was a certain, from then on there was an adversarial relationship between the committee and the executive branch. And so shortly thereafter Roy and I got called back and Senator Gwyneth said would you like to go to China with me? Of course. Both of us have been studying China and interested in major art our lives so no one had really been to China much then so it was a great opportunity. And Senator Sam Nunn who was chairman of the Armed Service Committee at the time had asked Gwyneth to go along with him and Senator Gary Hart and Senator William Cohen on a trip to China and Korea. Interestingly the Navy Captain John McCain, now Senator John McCain of Arizona was the senior Navy liaison to the Senate and organized and accompanied us on the trip. There are two memorable things about that trip. The first one was when we pulled up to what was called the Beijing Hotel. And it had been Senator Glenn's BLQ when he had been a pilot, a P-51 pilot for the Marshal Mission in China. He had stayed there in Beijing and had been in that hotel. We went up and been on a long flight. I took a shower and I had a hair dryer and I turned it on and all the lights went out. I walked out, opened my door to see Senator Nunn, Senator Hart, Senator Cohen, and Senator Dingle. What happened? What happened? I said I don't know. So the second memorable thing more seriously was the meeting with Dong Xiaoping. And the senators in every way they could were trying to get Dong to say and give them assurances that China would not use force against Taiwan. That was a central issue for most of them. And they tried every way they could to pin him down. And he was really doing sort of rope-a-dope. And finally at the end after every senator had tried and failed to actually get him to say much, almost it seemed an exasperation. He said don't worry about this so much. We're going to deal with this like we would deal with Hong Kong. And Tibet. Oh my God. Tibet? You put that with all of them. The congress, the senators all went out and they must not have caught that because when they went outside all of them remarked about and they're going to do it, they're going to treat Taiwan like Hong Kong. And they were happy about that. Well obviously, Taiwan was telling us the truth from the very first day and we just didn't quite catch it. Now when we came back, we immediately were into the Taiwan Relations Act debate. And we found out very quickly a head count that a majority of the committee was in favor of normalization of relations in China. Democrats and Republicans. It was, there were a few Republicans led by Senator Helms that were all together opposed to normalization. And there were a few Democrats who were very much supportive of the administration's position. But there was this middle group, Senator Glenn, Senator Stone, the Florida Chairman Church, Jacob Javits from New York who was the ranking member, Charles Percy from Illinois. That sort of group of people were the one that sort of very quickly became the center of drafting of the bill. The others had a role to play but because they had such, they were all stepped with the rest of the committee and they lost much, much of control over what happened. And for, I think, much like the House side, the Senate side, Church and Javits from the very beginning said this won't do it. We don't like what the administration has done. And in fact, even the people that were supportive of the administration were surprised and concerned. There was no mention of any military relationship in the original bill. It was an obvious omission, particularly since we had just walked away from Defense Street. So they tore up essentially the bill and started from scratch, brought in their own experts, lawyers from various places and started this long process of writing the bill. It ended up, you know, the major issue was that there were a lot of legal issues about trade and various things, but it all was centered on security, at least on the Senate side. And how far or how close they would come to the wording of the Mutual Defense Treaty or if they would do something less ascendant there. Clearly, they wanted to just walk right up to that wording that had been originally in the treaty, and in the end, back down a little bit from that. But in that process, they, in their discussions among themselves and in their discussions with the executive branch people that they were interfacing with, they made it clear that on arms sales and in security relationship, they were expecting to develop and build a special relationship like no other. Their vision was that since this was a brand new deal for trade, for economy, for all kinds of relations, there would also be a new deal for arms sales. And the reason was because if you do arms sales like normal, you are presented with a fate of conflict. And very few, if any, major arms sales are ever defeated. There are a few that are fought over, like arms sales to F-15s at Saudi Arabia or AWACS to Saudi Arabia, something like that. But once they present that arms sale list to you, it's almost a done deal. Knowing that, the committee said, we don't want that. We just don't want that. So they made it clear that they thought they were putting together something where there would be much closer consultation between the executive branch and the Senate. Now, this came to a head the year after the passage of the bill when, as you all know, there was supposed to be the first arms sale after normalization. And Senator Church was saying, why haven't they consulted with us? And so he called over the assistant secretary and he said, hold on. That's right. No names. But he called the assistant secretary over and he said, what's up? I thought we had made it clear to you that we want to have a special relationship on putting together this arms sales list to Taiwan. And my understanding through the grapevine is that you guys are already well along and almost have a fate of complete. And the assistant secretary, I think unwisely, started to interpret the Taiwan Relations Act to the chairman of the foreign relations committee. And his face turned razor back red, cardinal red. Steam was coming out of his ears. And he basically said, stop. I'm sorry. But don't tell me what I meant when we wrote the Taiwan Relations Act. We wrote it. And I'm telling you what we meant. And he said, I want your people over here today to coordinate and consult with us on this arms sale list. Well, Roy and I were the only two. At that time, there wasn't a Republican or Democratic staff. It was just one staff. And so Roy and I were the two people that they came over to see. And obviously it was just a minimum consultation. But at least they went through the process of doing it and at least got church off their back. Now, what had happened and why there was such a difference is that after the bill was passed, at the final passage, there's a part of the process where their technical issues are handled by lawyers from state. And it's usually to make sure that things are not against the U.S. law that's already written. And they're supposed to have enough of any policy changes in there because very few senators show up. They're mostly a staff function. Well, in that process, there was wording to the effect, and I can't remember the exact words, that arms sales will be according to U.S. law. And for those people there, rookies like me, I was a congressional staffer for about six weeks. That meant that since we were writing a law about arms sales, that obviously that would be under the U.S. law. State Department interpreted that as being the old, old way of doing it. The reference to the arms control expert? That's right. Defense assistance where that was going to be changed. Just like we'd sell something to Saudi Arabia or to Japan, we'd sell something like Taiwan. It's the only case in which we were treating Taiwan as a country, by the way. And so that particular issue was to dog the relationship with China and the Congress and the executive branch for ever since. And it was all over a misunderstanding of what the committee intended and the fact that Senator Church left right after this. And so the second time around, he wasn't there to protect the interest. And apparently it obviously wasn't as great of an interest to others that some of the committee had changed. A lot of people weren't even involved in the Taiwan Relations Act debate, had come onto the committee. So from then on, they had to deal with people like me who remembered and always tried to bring up that fact. But that at least is my recollection of those early years of the Taiwan debate. Final thought, they realized that they were doing something brand new and were not certain at all that it would work. They were terribly afraid that it wouldn't work. And they wanted to do right by Taiwan. Because even though they wanted to be normalized relations with China, they were almost unanimous in saying but not at the expense of Taiwan. And I almost forgot things. One interesting person was Senator Powell. He would have been expected to be full force behind the administration. Well, it turns out he was the most vocal, passionate supporter of the native Taiwanese. And he made a floor statement or a statement at the committee that was very passionate. He was always on the side of the center against the administration. And people didn't realize that during World War II, he had been trained to be a State Department civil administrator who would have gone into Taiwan if we had taken the island back from Japan. And he learned the native Taiwanese dialect. And all of his studies, the instructors, were Taiwanese nationalists. And so that for all the time that he was in the Senate, when he thought about Taiwan, he called it FAMOSA. He never would call it Taiwan. He never would recognize that it was the Republic of China. And his total focus was on the native Taiwanese. Thank you. That's very revealing. That's fascinating. I completely forgot about that. Well, Carl has just saved me a lot of trouble because when Bonnie and Richard and Chris asked me to speak, I was, you know, Dan, if I can remember what the Senate did. They were mainly painting the ass, but Carl wasn't, of course. Let me set the scene just a bit too. On the House side, thanks to Chairman Wolff and a Codelle Wolff in the summer of 78, we were actually much more plugged into probably what maybe was coming down than they were. It was a little bit harder for Holbrook to hide from us because in late June of 78, Codelle Wolff, 15 members and wives, very bipartisan, arrived in Beijing. And like all House members, we said, hey, we want to meet with Deng Xiaoping. And the Chinese said, you're House members. He doesn't meet with House members. He only meets with senators. Well, to their enormous surprise, he did want to meet with House members. And there was a reason. He wanted to lecture us about Vietnam and how you couldn't trust those Vietnamese and how he didn't want us to normalize with them, which believe it or not, Holbrook had been talking to them about. But he wanted to get going on normalization. And he understood that Taiwan was in the middle of this somehow. So we had a two-hour meeting with Deng Xiaoping. And I was the note-taker. And I could still read the notes, which is astonishing to me. The first hour was on the Big Bear and the Little Bear and how you Americans are naïve and they just play you for fools. And at the end of that first hour, I turned to the chairman. I said, I don't think he wants us to normalize with Vietnam. And he said, yeah, I think I got that. The second hour was on Taiwan. And he really did say we could wait 100 years on that. He talked a lot about arm sales. He wanted us to cut out the arm sales. But he made a lot of the representations that college reminded. So that's a scene-center. We were a little bit more plugged in. When we got back, Chairman Wolf, our late and wonderfully great staff director Ed Palmer and I actually briefed Syvance and Dick Holbrook. And then I went over to the White House and briefed Mike Oxenberg, whom I think we all missed to this day. So again, for better or for worse, very involved in it as a note-taker. My qualifications? I was a damn good press secretary. I had studied some China in grad school in McGill. I had studied Chinese history as an undergraduate at Berkeley. My dad, as director of civil aviation in Hong Kong, had built the first Kai Tech Airport. But that ain't why I got the job on the Asia Summit Committee. I got it because I was a very good press secretary. That's how Capitol Hill works. But I started off on the committee in early 77. So the first thing I did actually was call over to the Library of Congress and get in touch with Bob Zutter and say, now what the hell do I do? So I had some background. And we'd had a couple of trips by then. I had the briefings. I had security clearance, which still to this day gives my friends at the CIA a quiet chuckle. So that was the thing. Towards the middle of the day of, I believe it was December the 15th, Lester Chairman Wolf figured out there was something up. And he called Holbrook. He said, Dick, what the hell's going on? And Holbrook said, Lester, I can't tell you. I'll just say, watch this guy's clock news, okay? So we kind of knew what the president was going to say. But Holbrook wouldn't tell us. And at that point, we'd been intimately involved. So fast forward to January 1st, which was officially D-recognition Day, right? There was another codel. This was in the days when codels actually mattered because we still had enormous military sales and enormous aid programs all over Asia. And he really did have to go out and make sure the money was being spent wisely. So it wasn't contrary to what my friend Al came at rights. They weren't just junkets. They were interesting, important trips. And we were on one of our regular tour. And we're due to arrive in Taipei on the 1st, on D-recognition Day. And the State Department was terrified because of what had happened to Christopher. And they were absolutely convinced we were going to get mobbed and trouble would ensue, and they'd have to clean it up. So they got us a bus with wire mesh on the windows. I mean, it would look like an armored personnel carrier. But what State didn't realize was that the Taiwan government and our friends there knew exactly who their friends were and exactly what role that we were going to play because of the earlier resolution on keeping the arms sail. So we were greeted like conquering heroes as the people who would be saving Taiwan. And it was a heady lesson for members of Congress to be treated that way. And whether the State Department learned something or not, I don't know. But let's move forward a bit. Carl, I think, has set the scene. The mistrust, which was in many ways well earned, was an enormous problem. My recollection is that there was three major battles that took place over the next few months. Initially, the battle was really the old Taiwan lobby fighting and losing its last battle with Red China, with Communist China. That was sort of the first focus and a lot of lobbying by the old Taiwan lobby took place. The second major group, and I think Carl has pointed this out, is in many ways most members of Congress and most members of the Senate, they were really interested in China. There was a lure to China. The Gang of Four had only been gone a couple of years. And if you'd had a chance to go to China, it was pretty exotic still. Everybody was wearing their male jackets. And if they had a bike, they were damn glad. And they were still looking over their shoulder because you didn't really know that we were going to have another reversal. So it was a fascinating place. Even if you were very, very anti-communist, you were interested in this place, China. So we all kind of wanted to get going with the Chinese. That wasn't the debate. The debate was, of course, how are you going to do it? The third major thing, and again Carl has very well, are friends at the State Department. They wanted to do China normalization, period. And anything to do with Taiwan or anything else that might complicate that, make life difficult, they were against it. And I think Warren Christopher went to his grave not getting it quite frankly. He was very opposed to anything to do with the arm sail that became the central thing. Dick Holbrook was very opposed to the arm sails really for quite a bit of the debate. But Dick was nothing if not a really good politician. He finally figured out, okay, this is the price we're going to have to pay if we want normalization. So that was critical. But those were sort of the main battle line contestants. Something else we need to remember, and this is a little bit unpleasant, sensitive, you know, in those days Taiwan wasn't the Taiwan that we know and love. It was not a democracy. It was still in many ways a repressive military dictatorship. It was a little bit scary. There were people being thrown off buildings in LA, you know. And the old Taiwan lobby, if you were in the media or if you were a liberal human rights activist, you weren't too thrilled about that old Taiwan lobby. Taiwan money was not seen as entirely on the up and up. Very much like South Korean money in those days. And that was an obstacle. It was a difficulty for trying to work for and with Taiwan. I mean, you know, you can't argue counterfactuals. But if Taiwan had been a functioning democracy back then, what would have happened? You know, I can't believe that what did happen would have happened. But it wasn't. If I might interject, there's a revealing sentence or two in President Carter's memoir where he talks about how angry he was at his friends for taking the favors and invitations that were given out by Taiwan. And it was almost, it was a visceral anger. And he said, I lost friends over this. And I think that there was a personal animus from that on the part of the president. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I'll just tell you one story. The debate in the lobbying was tough. And some of it was nasty and some of it was pretty scary. I had one near-death experience and I'm absolutely not exaggerating because I did the press and PR. Jim Pristap at N du. Jim actually did most of the hard work and met with Carl a lot. And if you really want to know about the defense debate internally, call Jim. If you want to know about the PR and the stuff out front, talk to me. There had been something that had been publicized so that Walter Judd and Madame Chang were very aware of what one C Nelson was doing to help the Chairman Wolf do whatever we were doing. And I came out of his office in the Rayburn building and started to turn right down the main hall. And I saw Walter Judd and Madame Chang coming down the hall looking for me. And it was a scary thing because they were tough, smart, rough people. I turned around and went back and went out the back door of Mr. Soffas. But I mentioned that a lot of people got the personal treatment and it enlivened things. And if you remember Walter Judd, remember on his best day he was a pretty scary dude. Let's see. I think an example of how the State Department just didn't get it until Harvey Feldman, a hero to everyone on Taiwan and should be and a hero to all of us. Harvey was a great guy. He was in on the joke but had a really tough moral center. Harvey I think probably did as much as anybody to explain to Dick Holbrook and Warren Christopher. You know, your original idea is the Taiwan Enabling Act. We've kind of forgotten that's what it was called. And Lester Wolfe and others explained, you know, enabling doesn't quite cut it. That ain't what we're talking about. The Taiwan Relations Act, the title we all take for granted now, that was a fight in itself. The State Department wanted an enabling act, whatever the hell that meant. I'm not sure I remember. Now, Carl mentioned senators who were enormously helpful. Let's not forget Alan Cranston. The other day, I had a chance to talk to Lester Wolfe. Say, boss, what do you remember? He felt that we had a partnership with Ted Kennedy and that the arms sale language that became the key to it in the conference committee and in the final result, that that was largely a result, now this was Lester telling me, of course, of what he had done with Kennedy and Kennedy staff, who I'm pretty sure was Joyce Hsu, but the time having worked with our, Joyce preceded me as the China person with Lester. So let's not forget the critical role played by Kennedy. Also, Senator Cranston and Senator Javits, my wife was working for him at that point. I've got to tell you a Javits story. I can't resist this. Javits is one of the great senators in American history and certainly in the 20th century. He was really into policy. Really, that's what he did and that's what you were supposed to do. My wife was within two weeks of giving birth to Anthony Nelson, who many of you know at the U.S. ASEAN Business Council, when she left to Javits' staff. Javits always gave you a farewell handshake of photograph and Jan came in there looking like, you know, the San Francisco coming in to port and he looked at her and he said, honey, why are you leaving my staff? You know, it never occurred to him that you would actually leave working for Senator Javits to merely have a child. Anyway, I had to tell you that story. A great man. I've already talked to remind you about Harvey Feldman. One of the fights that took place that was so interesting was, and I'm glad Carl mentioned Senator Pell, because our friend Mike Fontey over here reminded me of the critical role that people like Senator Pell and Steve Solars and Jim Leach had played in getting language in the Taiwan Relations Act that we tend to forget about and that's the human rights language and I'm going to come back to that in a minute if I haven't already talked you to death. Now, I had a homework assignment. The letter that I got from Bonnie and Richard and Chris actually asked me to do something and not just blather at you. My assignment was to talk about the successes and failures of the Act and are we happy about that? So I'm going to do some of that. I hope I don't run too much of the time. The successes are obvious. We've had 35 years without conflict, although it's been tough sometimes. Overall, cross-strait ties are strong as they've ever been, really never better. The Taiwan economy is chugging right along and as we've been saying all morning my god, Taiwan is a real democracy. The term vibrant is used. I'm not sure if any more vibrant it wouldn't explode but it's an enormous success in that sense. I'm not sure I buy the notion of failures but there's some things that are not so good and troublesome. There's no question that Taiwan's official isolation remains a big problem and we were kind of hoping that something could work out there but the successive administrations whether or not they were hostile has never really been able to solve the riddle of what to do with Taiwan's membership in international organizations. We're states that are such a core idea. We know all these issues and we'll talk about them today. ECFA, the economic stuff. It's good obviously. It's also potentially bad because its success deepens the mainland's leverage but not necessarily Taiwan's. Although the ambassador today has made a very good case for more Taiwan's leverage with the mainland with the importance. Let's hope that does give some balance. Let's see. I want to talk about arms sales in a minute. What time do I have? Oh dear, because I'm going to steal a minute and a half. What's the biggest problem, the biggest disappointment? And I asked Chairman Wolff that and he said the first thing is how disappointed he is that arms sales have become such a political football and really they've been from the start. I don't know about you but it drives me crazy because you see this happen all the time. Some friends of Taiwan, maybe on Capitol Hill, maybe not, get into their head that Taiwan needs this weapon or that weapon and huge lobbying campaigns tend up. All kinds of pressure gets put on the administration of the moment about it. And it becomes suddenly a measure of do you love Taiwan? Do you support Taiwan? Do they really need the weapon? Maybe or maybe it is irrelevant. Sometimes it finally gets approved. Sometimes it finally gets through. And then what happens? The OY doesn't approve the money for the damn sale. And you've shed all kinds of blood to get there. This doesn't happen all the time but the weapons thing is a constant problem and we've never handled it very well. And both of us and that was Lester's first point. Now, so the key question of my assignment, this is how I defined it. Does the Taiwan Relations Act provide legal backing and the tools needed to allow the U.S. and Taiwan to cooperate to meet the political, economic and security challenges now arising and likely to accelerate over the next few years? I think the answer is yes it does. So that's got to be a huge, huge success but the arms sale is difficult. Question that obviously arises from that. Does China's decision to use military coercion to secure historical territory and maintain resources put the U.S. and Taiwan on a collision course? The Taiwan Relations Act just doesn't cover, again that's not this panel but that's a potential, not failure but difficulty that arises. But here's something that again I'm grateful to Mike Fontay for pointing this out to me. You know, at the end of the day it may not be the arms and the defense treaty that implications that is the critical factor but it's possibly likely to be the human rights language section to seize it. That is the real bedrock of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship in the future and also in some ways a legal, legislated by Congress prohibition against this administration or any administration walking away from Taiwan. Forget the arms sales. Human rights of people on Taiwan is the critical. Now finally, what do you look at at successes and failures? The Taiwan Relations Act can't make people do the right thing or make the right decisions but it does provide them the framework to do it. I have a personal recommendation which are going to indulge me in because this is my talk. I would love to see the leadership of Taiwan resolve to have domestic political rivalry stop at the water's edge. I would love to see a unified KMT TPP staffing in tech world. I think that might help a lot of things. Might also just transfer the fighting to here but I think the divide and conquer problem is huge and we need to deal with it. Finally, Dave Keegan is here. I believe Dave Warren. There. Among the many, many papers that have been put out that are terrific. I really love Dave's, the Taiwan Relations Act still has much more change. He asks a lot of key questions but he makes a recommendation that is very interesting and potentially not clear. Washington needs to integrate Taipei more clearly into its China policy including U.S. security planning for China's maritime periphery. Well, you know, in many ways the Taiwan Relations Act goes to the heart of how we're going to deal with those issues. So we'll see. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Carl Ford had a two-finger. Just one insight. How long and are the State Department, Senate, Executive Branch, Legislative Branch if you didn't stop after the first year? It kept going. And as I think most of you remember, at the beginning of the Reagan administration, the Chinese made another run at arms sales and the State Department came to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicating that they had agreed that arms sales would eventually stop and that the President had agreed to that. And this was, Senator Helms jumped up and said, no, Reagan didn't say that. He wouldn't have said that. And he ran out of the room and he went directly to the White House. And Gaston Siegel was given a note that there's signs, I think Gaston's right. I call it the addendum to the agreement that said arms sales will be balanced. If China's capabilities increase, arms sales to Taiwan can increase. And it was very much different than what I had agreed to in that agreement. And again, it was the differences between the view of the State Department and the Senate at least on those particular issues. Okay, thank you. A final presentation from Ambassador David Lee. 35 years ago, I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia. The normalization announcement came at the end of the fall semester. Even though it was expected, it still came as a great shock to all of us from Taiwan. Out of patriotism, I decided to take a semester off and went to Washington. By the time Deng Xiaoping came to visit, so we organized 15,000 students across the East Coast to demonstrate outside Lafayette Park and express our defiance. I would also like to mention there is another active student organizer who is president in this room, who is my good colleague and friend, Dr. Liu Xinxian. So after I was joined to the Congressional hearings on the proposed omnibus bill, the intricate legislative process that unfolded before my eyes absolutely fascinated this foreign student. So I knew what I had to make this as my doctoral dissertation topic. Today as I look back at what took place three and a half decades ago, it is still a sensitive and emotional subject with a tremendous implication for Taiwan and the security of western Pacific. I'm greatly honored at the invitation from prestigious CSIS and Brookings to offer my personal reflections today. The historic significance of this important piece of legislation. The goal of the legislation was to facilitate continuing U.S. relations with Taiwan in the post-D-recognition era. The State Department lawyers felt that an executive order wouldn't provide enough of legal basis to withstand possible challenges in court and would not comply with the Congressional Appropriation Authority. Only Congressional approved legislation could meet the legal requirement of this unprecedented new relationship with Taiwan. So an omnibus bill was submitted by the Carter administration to the Congress in mid-January. The bill was hastily drafted due to time constraints and depressing events, the Christmas and the New Year holidays. The preparation for Deng Xiaoping's forced-time visit and the negotiations with Taiwan on the new relationship all consumed the time and energy of the officials involved. Both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael Ochsenberg admitted that the administration paid a price for the secrecy of normalization negotiations, especially on the Taiwan legislation. Brzezinski described the early weeks of 1979 as especially frenzied and the blam, lack of adequate planning and preparation for the eventual woes of the omnibus bill. Ochsenberg also wrote the drafting process did not receive the total care it deserved. As expected, the administration bill was heavily criticized when it reached Capitol Hill. Senator Frank Church, the Foreign Relations Committee Chairman at the time, commented that the most glaring deficiency was the failure to provide a statement concerning the future of Taiwan. On the House side, Republicans introduced a resolution that included reinstating the mutual defense treaty. Chairman Clemen Zablaki of House Foreign Affairs Committee vowed that his committee would significantly revise the omnibus bill through the deliberation process. The outcome was a complete surprise to liberals and conservatives alike. The liberals had feared that the issue would provoke the conservative coalition and the China lobby to draft resolutions or amendments that would compel a presidential veto, and thus hinder the new relationship between U.S. and the PRC. The conservatives were astonished that the liberals like Frank Church and Jacob Javits could speak up so firmly for the security of Taiwan. The success of the TRA should be contributed to the spirit of realism among members of Congress that was prevalent throughout all stages of legislative process. At every point, they were cautious to coordinate with and accommodated the concerns of their congressional colleagues in order to forge consensus. In essence, most of the major players in the legislation exercised discretion to find a path that would fit national interest and meet the moral responsibility of the United States to Taiwan. This involved blending moral principles with political reality. The virtues of moderation and prudence were prevalent at every stage of the deliberation over the Taiwan Relations Act. In my view, the chronic achievement of the TRA is evident in the masterful ambiguities created by its architects. Several of them admitted that some sections of the bill were deliberately made ambiguous. This would allow future presidents and Congresses ample leeway to make decisions according to changing circumstances. It is not surprising that the TRA has withstood the challenge of time. In my view, this law has a special significance in two areas. The first is the security provision of Section 3. This has played an active and positive role in helping maintain the independence and integrity of Taiwan under the jurisdiction of the government of Republic of China. The second is the legal protection provided in Section 4, which is indeed as significant as the security provision of Section 3. This legal protection has allowed trade and investment ties as well as relations in other areas between Taiwan and the U.S. to continue to flourish. On the Taiwan side, TRA was highly regarded and acclaimed by the government and people 35 years ago. It provided a big morale boost at the nature of deregulation and helped to soothe feelings of anger and betrayal at the start of the normalization era. The security provisions and the continuing application of U.S. law to Taiwan further provided assurances to maintain Taiwan's integrity and enhance the confidence of both the government and the business community. The TRA was a consolation prize for Taiwan following the two marches months during which both Taiwan and the American government harbored a deep suspicion and grudges against each other. Lamentably, this mutual mistrust lasted throughout the remainder of a decoded administration. I would argue that TRA, in fact, laid the foundation 35 years ago for subsequent developments that leaders on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait could barely have foreseen. It gave President Zhang Jinguo a sufficient feeling of security to embark on the democratization reforms of the 1980s and allowed an impressive 3% GDP growth rate for Taiwan throughout the entire post-normalization decade. The story was quite different on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. Deng Xiaoping was criticized for not having been tougher on the U.S. during the normalization negotiations. Deng was also furious about the political impact of the TRA, which made his dream of ending the civil war and reunifying the country far more difficult and ultimately impossible during his lifetime. Deng later lamented to former British Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1983 that the TRA was an even greater problem for Beijing than U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. With the TRA standing in the way of reunifying the motherland, Beijing pragmatically started to soften its tone and to extend olive branches to Taipei. I believe this was the harbinger of the cross-strait rapprochement that we are witnessing today. Thank you very much. We now have a little time for questions. A couple of guidelines. Once I recognize you, please wait for the mics. Identify yourself and to whom you wish to pose your question. Who would like to ask the first question? Joe Donovan, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan. Do you have a mic? Here, come right here. Thanks. Joe Donovan, the managing director of Manitou Washington. And my chairman is sitting off to my right and is about to fire me. My question is to David and to Carl. If you could talk a little bit about Senator Helms' role in the formation of the TRA, which I think in David's book is actually a very, very interesting topic. Well, my observation was it was not very much because he very quickly was taking the position that he wanted to turn back normalization. And that was Senator Church, Senator Javits, were clearly directing the committee towards figuring out a way to protect Taiwan after normalization. And so that all of the discussion, he really didn't take much part because he was anti this, anti that. And so as I recall, that he and his staff didn't participate that much in the sort of the back room drafting and discussions that we had. In fact, he had a greater role, as I suggested, when he intervened in, well, it was 82. And talk to President Reagan and Reagan gave Gaston Seeger a written document that we used to threaten state with. Gaston would go, you know, safe. But that was the only, it was much more of a role later on than it was in the beginning. I concur with Carr. As a matter of fact, I think both the Senator Helms and Senator Goldwater did not play as an active role in the crafting of the legislation as we expected. I think that, for instance, Senator Goldwater was concentrating on challenging the legal status of ending the mutual defense trade instead of working on the deliberations of TRA. The China lobby that the executive branch had been so afraid of just fell apart. Yeah. They just ran headlong into reality in a sense that even people who were not thrilled about dealing with the communists had this fascination with China and recognized China. I remember as a young man with the Taiwan Embassy that you may remember, John Feng, a really smart, very smooth guy. And I remember very early on saying, John, you know, we all feel really badly about this, but you can't make us go, China, Taiwan, you can't. I mean, you know, we just got to face reality. And I think in their hearts, most members sort of understood that. I forgot to say one good thing about Zhang Jinguo. We really should be grateful to that man for his grasp of the need for democratization and the skill with which he helped make it happen. And, you know, if you had asked me at the time back in 78, 79, is he going to end up being the, in some ways, the founding father of Taiwanese democracy? I would have said, come on, when he is smoking. But, you know, it happened under him and let's always remember when they're building the monuments and putting things on the plaque. Let's do that. And in my self-imposed question, does the Taiwan Relations Act give you the framework necessary to confront the challenges? And it relates to this human rights part. Zhang Jinguo, I'm pretty sure, said, you know, in the long run, being a democracy is going to be a better defense for us. I can kind of remember that quote. And its relevance today may well turn out to be does it give us the framework to handle Taiwan identity and what we're going to do about Taiwan identity and how that relates to events as we go forward. It's not inconceivable the DPP will be back in power in a few years. How is the mainland going to react to that? How are we going to react to the mainland's reaction? You know, if you're looking at Putin and the Crimea and you're looking at what the Chinese are doing with our Vietnamese friends at the moment, there's reasons to be worried. So, again, that's not the topic for this panel, but the Taiwan Relations Act does give you the frameworks to discuss some of these things and deal with that. Another question? We'll go here and then to Mike Fonte. Back in the back, in the middle. And then Mike. Ken, when from TBAA, my question is about in the year 2000 in the US House have a vote with 340 and 70 passed a Taiwan Security Enhancement Act that was passed by the House and last year they have a TPA Taiwan Parties Act. So my question to the panel is, is it possible they have a new replacement to the TRA? Thank you. Any views? Well, I would think that David's comments are probing you and that is that the TRA obviously I have a certain pride of authorship as a minor player. The Chinese, I think, have had more trouble with the TRA than they have, as they said, arm sales. And that framework has established the ability of Taiwan to become the country it is today. And so I would hope that Taiwan doesn't want it to change. Assurances from America are fine but replacing the TRA I think would be a huge mistake. This may be a bad analogy but there's a reason for fast-track TPA in trade negotiations. You kind of need to have your structure and your instructions pretty firm because if you do a trade negotiation with that TPA fast-track at the end of the day USTR and the White House they've done their job and they go back to Congress and by the time it comes out you don't recognize what the hell you started with. My advice would be don't mess with the TRA. There's enough flexibility in the languages there you don't need to do it. You may need to tweak how you always interpret it as you do with the American Constitution. Well, that's American Clay Shea because if he ain't broke, why fix it? Mike Fonte, right here. Thanks for the panel. Mike Fonte, I'm the DPP director of the director of the DPP office here in Thailand. Chris, I think Lester Wolfe's volume is on background to the Taiwan Relations Act really stands me in good stead and I would suggest everybody here read them because it provides a lot of the back and forth that went on on the floor and one piece that went on on the floor a lot was Senator Glenn's interpolation of Christopher about various pieces of the diplomatic recognition and one thing that you pointed to, but I obviously would like to highlight, is the point that we recognize the PRC but we only acknowledge their position about Taiwan. Taiwan is not recognized by the United States as part of the PRC certainly or part of China that says. So I think if you could play that out a little bit, Carl, about Senator Ford did a lot of pushing on Christopher and the hearings and I think that point was really one of the key points, not necessarily about the PRC, but about the relationship. Well, yeah, my sense was that I was expressing the anger and the distrust that the senators had. They were clearly caught by surprise. There were attempts with word play, for example, the administration kept talking about weapons of a defensive nature and the senators would just go crazy. What is a defensive weapon? And they made it clear. They wanted weapons that would defend, the weapons necessary to defend Taiwan. So they didn't trust State Department. They didn't trust Jimmy Carter and this was not just Republicans. There was as many Democrats as Republicans who didn't trust Jimmy Carter as far as they could throw him and that wasn't very much and it was that atmosphere in which this T.R.A. was made and if it had been left up to the administration, it would have been a much different view. It would have not been anything like what we see today and I don't think it would have provided the background or the framework for Taiwan's economic success. I was an intern in Washington in 1966. I've been here a long time. Jimmy Carter's administration to this day has the worst congressional relations operation I've ever seen. And to me, it's a miracle. Anything got done because those guys couldn't find it. But that was also a real problem. I would say in some defense of the Carter administration that they were they were extremely afraid that if the word got out that the whole project would be sandbagged and undermined and... Oh, on that. No debate at all, of course. You can't have a press conference to announce what you're going to do in two weeks that would be this controversial, of course. But I have to tell you my chairman, Mr. Wolf, who had been intimately involved, as I said, to have to be told by Dick Holbrook, turn on the TV at six and wait. That really ticked him off. Ray Burkhart, the real chairman of the United States of Taiwan. To whom all praises do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should say that Richard was the chairman when I was the director in Taipei and very lucky, especially considering some of the alternatives they came both before and after him. Yeah. When... somewhat of a follow-up on Mike Fonte's question, in looking back at some of the legislative history sort of in preparing for this meeting, I noticed that something I had not seen before, which was the record shows that a number of the senators, including, I believe, Javits among them were very opposed to the term unofficial relations. And therefore, in the act, it never uses that language. The language, I think, there's a reference I saw somewhere in footnotes saying that the term unofficial relations was used in the Carter Administration's announcement. Mm-hmm. But it was definitely not a term that the senators themselves liked or allowed to be used in the act. I wanted a little commentary on that, but it might be interesting. And a second sort of question, legislative history question, the commitment to sell arms and continue to sell arms is quite an explicit commitment in the act. The commitment to respond to an emergency in the western Pacific is a more ambiguous commitment. And there is, I don't remember the precise language, but there's language in there about in accord with constitutional procedures. You reminded us that all this came in the wake of the War Powers Act, or in the time of the War Powers Act discussion. So I've always sort of thought that language probably was colored by the War Powers Act concerns in the Congress. So I'd also be interested in some sort of historical reflections on that. Thank you. I think that's absolutely true. And I remember Javits was the author of the Godfather of the War Powers Act, and given his role absolutely there. But Ray, as you were talking, I remembered something during the Chen Shui-Yan Administration, the very interesting spectacle of then Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zelik testifying to then Chairman Jim Leach, that after some particularly interesting Chen remarks, I think to the German press, among others. You know, if actions by Taiwan were to be seen as the cause of the Chinese use of military force, Taiwan could not necessarily count on the United States to come to its defense. Well, you know, this is a Republican administration speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That was a pretty sobering remark. But if you parse it, it reminds you of, in a sense, the same language that we have in the mutual defense treaty with Japan. And that is, it calls for consultations. You know, we tend to be a little glib talking about a sort of automatic American sending in the seventh fleet of safeguards, whoever and whatever. But it's usually much more carefully phrased than that. And obviously each time it's going to be more difficult. Carl, do you want to comment on that? Well, indeed, I think if you look closely, every agreement that we have has that little phrase in it. And it's that wiggle room that our allies and friends focus on and look at very closely. And call us up when things like the Ukraine and the Crimea happen. Wouldn't you be there? But no, I think that the Senators wanted to talk about how to maintain a relationship with Taiwan. And it was, I guess, the state and administration who were talking about unofficial religion. But they really didn't see it that way. If they could have had it to maintain a unofficial relationship, they would have. And they just concluded that they couldn't. And so they tried to make the best of that situation. But it wasn't because they were accepting the notion that the unofficial relationship was a good thing. Remember, I tried to stress Taiwan Relations Act, that was our title. Taiwan Enablement Act, that's what states tried to slip through. And we just weren't going to buy it. Do you have any comments? Well, I think I concur with my two panelists' colleagues. And as I recall that the policy provision and the arms sales provision, I think those two subjects probably occupied half of the debate during the deliberations. And certainly the Congress was under tremendous pressure from the administration against adding stronger language. So I think what we have seen in the Section 2 and Section 3 were really the work, I think, the great compromise reached by the both sides of the administration and the Congress together. Okay. Steve Goldstein. And then I'll go to Garrett. This is the perspective from the legislative side. I would just suggest to everyone that the Carter papers are open, that they should be read, that you'll find some very interesting information in there. I will tantalize you. And let me just read you one what I hope will be a tantalizing piece on the eve of the Carter announcement. What we have in President Carter's White House diary is Carter recorded that when he told Senator Byrd, this is on the 13th, when he told Senator Byrd about Dung's acceptance of the draft communique, Byrd said, quote, anytime I brief Senators, it wouldn't be secret for more than five minutes. So they were, and if you read the whole drift of the recognition debate within the administration, at every stage they are talking about Congress in the need to prepare Congress and they never get to it. And I think part of the reason that they never get to it is that the final recognition process the last two weeks was so hectic and so rushed that a lot of things got lost. One was an almost disastrous misunderstanding by Dung on arms sales that was largely our fault. They also forgot that there was going to be an election in Taiwan in late December. Well there also was the perspective of the administration really didn't change from administration to administration because during Bush 1 I had already, I was at the Pentagon and I had been doing East Asia for the first two years but I moved on to the Middle East Jim Lilly had taken over as the Assistant Secretary and President Bush went to Fort Worth and announced that he was going to sell F-16s to Taiwan and I can still remember the next day when the state said we aren't going to do it and we said, well you got it and Glenn Rudd who was the head of DSA at the time came to me because he didn't know Jim that well and he said, listen, they are buying this F-16 thing. He said, what you talk to Jim about this he said, what you can do is tell them that making sure you understand that the U.S. Air Force is making a mid-life upgrade to the F-16 that makes it identical to the F-16 DNC that it is not an A-V when you get the mid-life upgrade but if you call it that they won't know what it is and yes we did the F-16 mid-life upgrade and state department okay, that sounded like a good solution it was an F-16 CD and Bush won so this is our last question thank you for an excellent panel really enjoyed all the reminiscing my name is Garrett van der Wees editor of Taiwan Communique and Chris point that you mentioned that Senator Pell and Kennedy and Jim Leeds played such a crucial role in the Human Rights Clause and I'm really glad you mentioned that. There was of course also Congressman Steve Solarch and we refer to them as the Gang of Four in Congress and they played I think a pretty crucial role in the subsequent transition to democracy in Taiwan. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit of how this Human Rights Clause played a role in that process afterwards? I have a totally different perspective on that the fact is that right after that Senator Glenn was running for president and so I was out among people trying to raise money and so I got a call from both the Kennedy staff and the Solarch staff in fact I think I got it from Steve directly saying what are you doing? I said well I'm talking to the Chinese people they've got a lot of money he said you can't do that and I said why not? He said well they don't want you to say too much and I said well Senator Glenn feels that way so pop them for us you'll just have to live with it and so there was a real reluctance on the part of the liberals on that committee to be for Human Rights yes but pro-China to the bone and so that it came to Native Taiwanese as opposed to China China every time was my experience with both Solarch and with Kennedy staff I can confirm that I sort of looked into what Steve did on the TRA and it was very little and it wasn't the Human Rights part of it was really carried by Pell and Leach and they got a lot less than they wanted it wasn't until Steve became chairman of the Asia subcommittee that he took this on as a cause I asked Chairman Wolf about Solarch actually because I couldn't remember we're talking again 78, 79, 80 and he said actually Steve was kind of against TRA and it was mainly on Human Rights ground he just didn't think it was strong enough and didn't trust we're talking in the early days later on I had left the hill by then I was a Japanese for this man but Richard was doing the hard work at that point well thank you Carl, Chris and David for some really fascinating insights on a time long past but still very relevant to today it's a reminder that legislation is like making sausage you really don't want to know so thank you very much