Mr. Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), former vice-president of the Republic of China;
Mr. Thomas Fann (范炘), Chairman, American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei;
Mr. Christopher Marut (馬啟思), Office Director, American Institute in Taiwan;
Mr. Jacob Chang (張大同), Deputy Secretary-General, National Security Council;
Mr. Da Nien Liu (劉大年), Deputy Secretary-General, National Security Council;
Mr. David Y.L. Lin (林永樂), Minister of Foreign Affairs;
Mr. Woody Tyzz-Jiun Duh (杜紫軍), Chairman, National Development Council;
Members of the American Chamber of Commerce and guests;
ROC government colleagues, ladies and gentlemen;
Good evening!
I am very pleased to be here today for AmCham's annual Hsieh Nien Fan (謝年飯). This is a special occasion for me, because it marks the 13th time that I have been invited to attend. I think I've attended more times than most of your members!
But there's also another reason why today is a very special day. Does anyone know why?
It's because tomorrow is April the 10th, and that marks the 36th anniversary of the date the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) took effect. So today, on the eve of the 36th anniversary of this landmark legislation in ROC-US relations, it is especially significant to be here, together with so many friends from America. So perhaps we can use today's Hsieh Nien Fan as a kind of prelude—a celebration on the eve of tomorrow's commemorations.
At the moment, US-Taiwan relations are indeed the best they have been in the 36 years since the TRA became effective. Everyone in Taiwan, military and civilians, was shocked back on December 16, 1978 when President Carter announced on TV that the US was breaking diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. But three months later, the US Congress made significant amendments to the Carter administration's Taiwan Enabling Act. Congress not only changed the content of the Act, but also changed its name to the Taiwan Relations Act. At that time, one American academic, Carl Gable, commented on the whole situation. He said that by establishing diplomatic relations with mainland China, and breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the Carter administration had derecognized Taiwan. But the TRA formulated by the US Congress was actually a sort of legislative re-recognition of Taiwan.
As you all know, based on existing international law, an unrecognized country loses its status as a legal entity in the United States. It therefore cannot engage in any legal proceedings due to the lack of a judicial personality. But the TRA not only sees Taiwan as a foreign government for purposes of US law, but also allows Taiwan to initiate and respond to judicial litigation. The TRA also allows the US government to provide Taiwan with defensive weaponry. And the property rights attached to our embassy and Twin Oaks estate in Washington, DC also remained unaffected by the break in diplomatic relations or de-recognition.
I will tell you an interesting episode:
At that time, I was studying for my doctorate at Harvard. One day when I was walking in the library, I ran into my thesis advisor, Professor Detlev Vagts. He consoled me by saying, "Ying-jeou, I understand what you're going through. But you should know: Taiwan is the most recognized unrecognized country of the United States." Well, he's a nice professor, for sure!
Since I took office nearly seven years ago, mutual trust between Taiwan and the United States at the highest levels of government has been restored. Taiwan military procurement from the US has also exceeded US$ 18.3 billion, the highest it has been in any period over the past 20 years, and twice what it was during my predecessor's term of office. And in March of 2013, our countries resumed negotiations under the 1994 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) as we prepare to take a step-by-step "building block" approach in promoting further trade liberalization.
Last year, Taiwan and the US forged even closer cooperation in several areas. US Secretary of Commerce statistics show that last year, Taiwan-US trade in goods reached US$ 67.4 billion. That allowed Taiwan to surpass India and Saudi Arabia to become the United States' 10th largest trading partner. At the same time, the US once again surpassed Japan to become Taiwan's second largest trading partner. Last month, Taiwan companies also flocked to the US government's SelectUSA 2015 Investment Summit, and overall, the Taiwan contingent was the second largest group in attendance.
In addition to our interaction in the economic and trade arenas, official contacts between Taiwan and the US have also continued. In December of last year, President Obama signed the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014, agreeing to sell the ROC four Perry-class frigates. High-level US officials also visited here, most notably US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who came to Taiwan in April last year. She was the first US Cabinet-level official to visit us in 14 years.
This year, in February, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel stated that over the past few years, developments in Taiwan-US relations have been productive. He also said that those developments were closely related to the improvement in cross-strait relations. He also expressed that the US hopes to see the continued positive development of cross-strait relations.
So ever since the Cold War began, this was the first time that the United States did not have to choose sides when handling cross-strait relations. Nor did mainland China or Taiwan have to face that kind of predicament. This highlights our efforts in the realm of cross-strait relations over the past few years, as both ROC-US and cross-strait relations have become more harmonious. As this kind of interaction has transformed Taiwan's cross-strait and international relations, the vicious cycle of the past is gone, and we're moving ahead under the virtuous cycle of today.
So, up to this point, I have been talking about relatively recent developments. In truth, the Republic of China and the US have a long and storied relationship.
Now, I would like to tell you two stories to illustrate our friendship.
The first story I want to tell occurred at the very beginning of the 20th century. In 1901, one year after the so-called Boxer Rebellion (庚子拳亂/義和團之亂), the Qing Empire and the United States signed the Boxer Protocol, which paid US$ 24.4 million to the US—known as the Boxer Indemnity (庚子賠款).
In his State of the Union Address in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt stated that part of the Boxer Indemnity should be returned to China. He said, and I quote, "This nation should help, in every practicable way, in the education of the Chinese people, so that the vast and populous empire of China may gradually adapt itself to modern conditions. One way of doing this is by promoting the coming of Chinese students to this country and making it attractive to them to take courses at our universities and higher educational institutions."
In 1924, an executive order by US President Coolidge returned the other portions of the Boxer Indemnity. So by that time, the US had returned about 95% of the Indemnity to the Republic of China, making a tremendous contribution to cultivating human talent.
The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program (庚子賠款獎學金計畫) provided funds that helped many people who became the pillars of the Republic of China; people like the former ROC ambassador to the US and renowned scholar Hu Shi (胡適). And then there was Chang Peng Chun (張彭春), also known as P.C. Chang, who represented the ROC and helped draft the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. And we cannot forget the scientists Chien Siliang (錢思亮), former president of National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica, and Wu Ta-you (吳大猷), former Academic Sinica president and minister of the National Science Council. History will remember both of them for the important roles they played in developing education and the sciences in the Republic of China. These gentlemen were all outstanding talents who received scholarships, and then returned home to contribute all they had learned.
Also worth mentioning is that Mei Yichi (梅貽琦), former president of National Tsing Hua University, also headed off to the US to study as a member of the first cohort of students to be awarded a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. In fact, Tsing Hua University's predecessor, Tsing Hua Imperial College, was established specifically because of the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program. The College was responsible for selecting our country's most outstanding students to be sent to America for further studies. So even today, National Tsing Hua University, in Hsinchu, is still collecting interest on funds from the Boxer Indemnity that were returned by the United States.
And what the US did also had an effect in Europe, where Holland used Boxer Indemnity funds to set up a China Research Program at Leiden University. That made Leiden University a strategic center for research on China, and fostered several generations of talented individuals. That soon became the norm, and the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Japan all followed suit.
So I have great admiration for the vision shown by presidents Roosevelt and Coolidge, and the US Congress. They were able to empathize with an Asian country that was far away, lagging far behind, and extremely large. Their vision reflects the Confucian "Kingly Way" (王道思想) of traditional Chinese culture, where the leadership "revives what has been downtrodden, restores lines of succession that have been broken, and calls back those most capable of contributing to society." (興滅國、繼絕世、舉逸民) At that time, the US was already a world power, but in academic terms, perhaps American universities weren't necessarily the best in the world.
But having China's most talented youth head to the US to study through the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program was definitely the best way to expand US-style education, as well as freedom and democratic values, in East Asia. So even in that era of imperialism, presidents Roosevelt and Coolidge, in this sense, were not thinking like imperialists, and refrained from invading and bullying a weaker country. And for that reason, I find their sense of perspective—and their vision—truly admirable.
The second story took place 75 years ago. This year is the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the Republic of China's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan. During the course of World War II, the US government and citizens not only gave the Republic of China substantive assistance, but also proved to be staunch friends. In 1937 when Japanese forces occupied Nanjing and massacred almost 300,000 military personnel and civilians, John Rabe, who was the chief China representative for the German company Siemens, overcame innumerable obstacles, and brought the Westerners in Nanjing together to set up the Nanjing International Safety Zone. That helped protect over 200,000 local citizens from death or rape at the hands of the Japanese military.
John Rabe was a German, but there was also an American doctor who helped the group that gathered around Rabe to protect ROC citizens, Dr. Robert Wilson, as well as an American missionary, Ms. Minnie Vautrin.
So this year we have invited John Rabe's grandson Dr. Thomas Rabe, professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Heidelberg University, and his family, to come to Taiwan to participate in activities commemorating victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan. We are also looking for descendants of the other two Americans I just mentioned. Another American missionary, Mr. John Magee, also recorded the atrocities of the Japanese army that occupied Nanjing, in both images and words. His work opens a window for the world to see the plight of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
That hard-fought War of Resistance between the Republic of China and Japanese forces lasted for eight long years. For the first four years, our soldiers fought virtually alone, without any assistance from outside sources. During that period, however, the US provided indirect assistance. And the most inspiring example of that assistance came from the American Volunteer Group—the AVG—which was later absorbed by the Fourteenth Army Air Force in China. That unit became known far and wide by their nickname: The Flying Tigers.
The origin of the name "Flying Tigers" is interesting. One story says that the noses of that unit's airplanes featured a painting of a tiger shark with an enormous mouth. But at that time, many Chinese who lived in the interior had never seen a tiger shark. So they thought it was a tiger. That's how the name "flying tigers" was born. And we can see that the Flying Tigers became more than just a military unit. They came to represent Chinese-American cooperation. Even their name is the product of a collaborative effort by the two countries.
When the Flying Tigers had been in China for less than a year, they had already downed at least 200 Japanese war planes. That allowed the Chinese Air Force, which was on its last legs, to slowly recover its fighting capabilities. The Flying Tigers also supported ground operations. So in November of 1943, at the Battle of Changde (常德) in Hunan (湖南) Province, the US Fourteenth Army Air Force in China joined forces with our own air force to form the Chinese-American Composite Wing. Working together, they brought down 25 Japanese planes, with another 14 planes listed as possibly shot down, and 19 additional Japanese planes damaged. The Japanese Air Force didn't dare return to challenge them again.
And just when the forces defending Changde were in dire straits, the composite air forces air-dropped ammunition, rice, and pork for those ground troops. They also dispatched operatives to the battlefields who filed hourly intelligence reports to General Claire Lee Chennault. That allowed the General to direct the Flying Tigers to attack Japanese forces that mounted offensives, and also leverage victories by bombing defeated Japanese troops even as they retreated.
You are probably not aware that just five days after Changde fell into enemy hands, it was recovered by ROC forces. Thereafter, Lieutenant General Yokoyama Isamu (橫山勇), commander of the Japanese 11th Army, unexpectedly disobeyed orders from the Commander of the Expeditionary Army, Hata Shunroku (畑俊六), who had been dispatched from Japan. The Lieutenant General, citing "troop exhaustion," thus refused to follow specific instructions to retake Changde. The collaborative war efforts of the Chinese-American Composite Wing were indispensable. And 72 years later, just reading about this chapter in military history made me sing the praises of these Chinese and American heroes, even as my eyes welled up with tears.
So this year, we will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan with various activities. We have decided to invite General Chennault's granddaughter, and descendants of General James Doolittle, who was famous for his bombing raid on Tokyo. We want to invite those descendants to participate in some activities, and also take advantage of this face-to-face meeting to thank their forbearers for their contributions to the Republic of China.
Ladies and gentlemen, in World War II, the Republic of China squared off against Asia's only modernized country, Japan, which had several million sophisticated, well-trained troops. For a long time, China fought alone, without external help, in a desperate and debilitating war. But at the critical time, the United States came through with timely assistance. That was touching, and inspiring, and let people see the truth and unwavering friendship between the Republic of China and the US. So here, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the United States once again for the assistance it provided to the Republic of China in the War of Resistance.
And since the ROC forces engaged the Japanese throughout the war without succumbing to compromise or surrender, and tied up at least 800,000 Japanese soldiers and a large number Japanese Air Force personnel, Japan was unable to fully participate in the Pacific War Theater, which had a major impact on how the war played out.
In conclusion, I just spent a good bit of time explaining the long history of interaction between the Republic of China and the US. For the Republic of China, from the beginning of the last century and up into the 1930s, 1940s, and even all the historical periods I didn't mention here today, there has been one constant: Our history, the history of the Republic of China, has been intimately linked with that of the United States.
So my fondest hope is that we can build on the foundation of friendship that we've forged over more than a century, continue our cooperation, and strengthen our relationship. And that we can continue to make progress—in politics and economics, and in terms of our social, educational, and cultural interaction. As partners in progress, we can create a more beautiful future, and continue to write the history of tomorrow.
Thank you very much!