President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of June 30 with a delegation from Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). In addition to explaining advances and achievements in ROC-US and cross-strait relations in recent years, the president also reaffirmed the ROC's efforts to realize its role as a peacemaker in the international community.
In remarks, the president stated that in 2011 Harvard University and the ROC’s Top University Strategic Alliance signed a memorandum of cooperation. Since then, 16 visiting scholars and three doctoral students from Taiwan have gone to Harvard for research or study. Harvard's GSAS and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies are responsible, respectively, for conducting the program for doctoral students and visiting scholars.
The president remarked that in addition to Harvard University, the ROC's Ministry of Education also conducts the Taiwan-United States Sister Relations Alliances Program, under which it has signed memoranda of academic cooperation with four renowned institutions: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Imperial College London. It is hoped that these substantive methods, including visiting-scholar programs and sending doctoral students to these institutions, will further promote the ROC's policy of internationalizing higher education, he said.
Discussing ROC-US relations, President Ma pointed out that since he took office seven years ago the ROC government has consistently embraced a sincere, low-key, principled, and surprise-free approach in promoting bilateral relations and restoring mutual trust at the highest levels of government. Since 2011, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry have made positive comments about the development of relations between Taiwan and the United States, referring to Taiwan as "an important security and economic partner." US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton also recently reiterated in public that the US has worked to build a “comprehensive, durable, and mutually beneficial” partnership with Taiwan.”
In the area of security cooperation, the president noted that the United States continues to fulfill the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances of 1982. As for arms sales to Taiwan, for instance, the United States has sold a total of US$18.3 billion worth of arms to Taiwan since he took office seven years ago, which is the highest total in the past 20 years. He also noted that during deliberations on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 last month, the Senate and House of Representatives' Armed Services Committees both passed initiatives calling for strengthening ROC-US military exchanges, including inviting Taiwan to participate in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) and the Red Flag training exercises, thereby adding depth to bilateral cooperation in the area of security.
Commenting on economic and trade relations, the president also said that two years ago the ROC and the United States resumed negotiations under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement of 1994. A total of 12 working meetings have been held, marking an important milestone in bilateral relations. Furthermore, as of the end of April this year, the ROC ranked 10th among America's 15 largest trading partners, ahead of Brazil, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium, and the United States is Taiwan's second largest trading partner behind only mainland China. In November 2012 the United States also included the ROC in its Visa Waiver Program. Of the 38 nations accepted into the program, Taiwan is the only one that does not have formal diplomatic ties with the United States. The number of ROC nationals traveling to the United States has grown about 20% since the ROC's entry into the program, said the president.
The president remarked that 36 years ago the United States established diplomatic relations with mainland China and ended its diplomatic relationship with the ROC. Studying for his doctorate at Harvard at that time, the president said he recalls his thesis advisor, Professor Detlev Vagts saying, "Taiwan is the most recognized unrecognized country of the United States." Also at that time, American scholar Carl Gable commented that then US President Jimmy Carter's move to establish relations with mainland China and break ties with Taiwan amounted to a "de-recognition of Taiwan" by the executive branch. Congress's enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, however, was tantamount to "legislative re-recognition of Taiwan."
The president stressed that over the past seven years, the positive development of ROC-US relations has been closely related to progress in cross-strait relations. He stated that since he took office in 2008, the ROC has consistently sought, under the framework of the ROC Constitution, to maintain the status quo of "no unification, no independence, and no use of force" in the Taiwan Strait, and to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait ties under the "1992 Consensus," whereby each side acknowledges the existence of "one China" but maintains its own interpretation of what that means. This has turned cross-strait ties from being irreconcilable and a vicious circle into a virtuous circle.
President Ma also remarked that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have signed 21 agreements covering direct aviation links, trade, joint combatting of crime, medical treatment, and food safety. There were no regularly scheduled direct flights between the two sides before he took office, but currently there are 120 daily. Also, the number of discrete visits made by mainland Chinese tourists to Taiwan has exceeded 14.16 million over this period, reaching nearly four million last year alone. At the same time, the number of mainland students studying in Taiwan has increased from 823 prior to his taking office to over 32,000 now, a 40-fold increase. This has allowed young people from both sides to become acquainted with one and other from an early age and gradually build friendships, thus helping solidify a long lasting foundation for peace, the president noted. Even more important is that the heads of the agencies on either side responsible for cross-strait affairs have met a total of four times last year and this year, and referred to each other using their official titles. All of these developments indicate that cross-strait relations are the most stable and peaceful they have been in the past 66 years, said the president.
Commenting on regional peace, President Ma told the visitors that in 2012 he unveiled the East China Sea Peace Initiative, which maintains that "although sovereignty over national territory cannot be compromised, natural resources can be shared." The ROC and Japan in 2013 signed a fisheries agreement, effectively ending a 40-year fishing dispute. Therefore, on May 26 of this year he formally announced the South China Sea Peace Initiative with the hope of extending the experience of promoting peace and cooperation in the East China Sea to the South China Sea to peacefully resolve disputes there. The US State Department immediately praised the initiative, and on June 12, identified as the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), he published an article in The Wall Street Journal about the South China Sea Peace Initiative. This highlights the ROC's determination to become a peacemaker in the international community, the president said.
The delegation included Judith Singer, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity; Margot Gill, Administrative Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Peter Marsden, Dean of Social Science; and Mark Elliott, Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.