ret theft by two Chinese scientists in the U.S.; again it was a situation of China telling Taiwan and the U.S. that it had the power and could be willing to use it if things don’t go their way. China is flexing its muscles to intimidate Taiwan, but why does that mean that the U.S. is involved?Since the Chinese civil war, the U.S. has put its support behind Taiwan. It did this to gain another foothold (besides Japan) in East Asia against communism and to create another strong trade ally. The U.S. did many of the same things economically for Taiwan as they did for Japan in the cold war years; we provided a market for their Japanese-model export goods, financial support, and defense for the island against attack. The U.S. government did all of these things for Taiwan, but what they said about Taiwan was quite different. In 1978, the U.S. and Chinese governments issued the Joint Communiqu on the establishment of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the PRC as the “sole legal government of China” and “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China.”3 This Joint Communiqu by the U.S. government is one of the main Chinese arguments for reunification, but the Chinese don’t take into consideration that it was a diplomatic move more than a serious statement on the status of Taiwan. The statement enabled trade between the U.S. and China; that was its goal; we told them what they wanted to hear to get what we wanted from them. This was definitely the case because we retained the same relationship with Taiwan that we had before the statement was made; we dealt with them as if they were a separate country as we still do. If we had really meant what we said, we would have changed our relationship with Taiwan. If anything we have strengthened that relationship in the years since. We remain committed to the defense of Taiwan against any foreign attack. In the current s...
