Editor's Note: Among the members of the Biden administration's cabinet, U.S. Trade Representative Dai Qi has attracted much media attention. She is in charge of vital trade matters, and her status as a descendant of Taiwanese immigrants makes her remarks about China very much. Today, Dai Qi is not the only political figure with a Taiwanese background who has a certain influence in the United States. At the end of April, the White House unveiled a new list of nominees for government officials, two of whom excited Taiwanese public opinion: Xu Ruobing and Mr. Lu. The former is expected to become the highest-ranking Asian-American civilian official in Pentagon history, and the latter is nominated as the U.S. representative to the United Nations for management and reform. Appointing officials with a Taiwanese background is in line with Biden's line of building a pluralistic ruling team, but at a time when Sino-US relations are not out of the trough, these measures by the US government have touched the sensitive "political nerves" of the international media. "They can't generalize about China's political orientation." Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times reporter on the 20th that the Chinese-American group is very complex, and their identity and political concepts are extremely different. Moreover, it is Secretary of State Blinken, Presidential National Security Adviser Sullivan and other senior officials in the field of diplomacy and security who really play a key role in the Biden administration's Taiwan policy.
They are appointed or nominated by the Biden administration
Xu Ruobing was nominated by the Biden administration late last month as under secretary of defense for research and engineering. According to the media, she is an engineer, has long worked in military enterprises such as Raytheon, and has rich experience in the field of scientific and technological research and development. During the Obama administration, Xu served as the Department of War's assistant secretary for procurement, logistics, and technology.
Taiwan's "China Times" said that Xu Ruobing was responsible for the US-Taiwan Air Force arms sales case when he was in the US military. Her grandfather, Hsu Kang-leung, was a lieutenant general in Taiwan's air force and served as "deputy commander-in-chief of the air force." Some Taiwan media particularly emphasized that Xu Ruobing lived in Taiwan before he was 10 years old and had "deep" relations with Taiwan.
Zhao Tianlin, a member of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan Foreign And Defense Committee, told the media that Xu Ruobing was a symbol of "very important importance," "representing (the U.S. government's) respect for women and Asians," and "somewhat stronger support for Taiwan."
Mr. Lu was also on the biden administration's new nominees at the end of April. According to the China Times, his parents were born in the mainland, later moved to Taiwan to live, and settled in Maryland after studying in the United States in the 1950s. Mr. Lu was a classmate of former U.S. President Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, a former Secretary of the White House Cabinet during the Obama administration, and was nominated as Deputy Secretary of Labor in 2014.
As the U.S. Trade Representative, Dai Qi's recent news exposure is quite high, and her nomination was announced by Biden in December. Born in Connecticut, Dai Qi received degrees from Yale University and Harvard University, and has lived in Guangzhou and taught English at Sun Yat-sen University.
From 2007 to 2014, Dai served as chief consultant on trade enforcement for China in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, during which time he handled U.S. dispute lawsuits against China at the WTO. From 2014 to 2021, Dai served as the chief trade lawyer on the U.S. House Fundraising Committee, during which time he pushed Democrats to support the Law on Preventing Forced Uyghur Labor. On Sino-US trade issues, Dai Qi believes that the United States should increase "offensive" means, use subsidies and other incentives to reduce the United States' excessive dependence on Chinese imports, while continuing to use human rights issues, the World Trade Organization system and allies to pressure China.
Separately, the White House announced in March that Wu Xiuming, a 49-year-old professor at Columbia Law School, would join the White House National Economic Council as special assistant to the president on science and technology and competition policy. As an expert on Internet law and policy, he has taken a tough stance on the monopoly of tech giants. Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao said that Wu Xiuming's grandfather was a bureaucrat during the Japanese occupation period, and his father Wu Mingda was born in Tainan.
From the perspective of American society, immigrants from Taiwan are naturalized as Americans as "Taiwanese Americans", referred to as "Taiwanese Americans (ta)". But in fact, "Taiwanese Americans" refer not only to the first generation of immigrants from Taiwan, but also to the descendants of "Taiwanese Americans" born in the United States. According to the last census data in the United States, "Taiwanese Americans" have several characteristics: 73.6% of them have a college degree or above; the average income is 68,809 US dollars, which is 37% higher than the level of the United States; 76% of adults own their own homes. Some analysts believe that these data show that the lives of "Taiwanese Americans" are more stable than those of other immigrant groups, and their integration into the mainstream life in the United States is relatively smooth.
In the past 20 years, there have been many officials and congressmen with Taiwanese backgrounds in the US political circles, such as Zhao Xiaolan, who was the FORMER US secretary of transportation and secretary of labor, and local officials such as Chen Liwanruo, the first Chinese female mayor in the United States. It is generally believed that in the history of the US Congress, wu zhenwei, Meng Zhaowen, and Liu Yunping have clearly defined ethnicity as "Taiwanese." Wu Zhenwei resigned in 2011, and both Meng Zhaowen and Liu Yunping are now members of the House of Representatives.
"Political Orientation toward China Cannot Be Generalized"
It is no accident that the "Taiwan American" political group has gradually expanded. The island has experienced several upsurges in the United States, and the original Taiwanese expatriates have lived in the United States for many years, and they are becoming more and more familiar with the "rules of the game" of American politics. Some Americans are also beginning to take notice of this relatively active group, hoping to use this resource for their own benefit.
In 1994, under the impetus of the then Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pell, and the Chairman of the House Of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, Berman, and others, then-President Clinton signed a bill to change the place of birth of the official documents of "Americans born in Taiwan" to "taiwan." In 1999, the White House and Congress respectively announced the establishment of the "TaiwanEse American Tradition Week" in May each year to "recognize their dedication to American society." Taiwanese immigrant groups have begun to use these conditions to exert influence on issues involving Sino-US relations and Taiwan Strait affairs.
Some analysts believe that after the 1950s, some people in Taiwan Province chose to study in the United States due to limited career development, and their dissatisfaction with the political reality on the island made them consciously or unconsciously equate opposing the KMT with opposing "China." To this end, they often organized themselves in the name of "Taiwan" and confronted various overseas Chinese organizations in the name of "China" of the KMT to compete for the right to represent the Taiwan region. These backgrounds have allowed Taiwanese expatriates to participate in political activities earlier than other overseas Chinese, and some have a tough attitude toward the mainland.
For example, Wu Xiuming's father, Wu Mingda, went to Canada in the 1970s after graduating from the medical department of National Taiwan University, and then went to the United States to study and teach, and at the same time began to promote the overseas "Taiwan independence" movement, and returned to Toronto to serve as the chairman of the Canadian "Taiwan Independence Alliance". According to the New York Times, Wu Xiuming learned to read Chinese as an adult and knew that Wu Mingda was a figure who advocated "Taiwan independence" in his early years. According to Taiwan media reports, Wu Xiuming has many Taiwan relatives engaged in politics on the island, and most of them are running on behalf of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Last year, Wu Xiuming submitted an article to the New York Times saying that although Trump's political motives for banning tiktok were dubious, the mainland used these media outlets to "network nationalism" in violation of the "principle of network openness", and "this unfair phenomenon should no longer be tolerated... If China refuses to abide by the rules of the open Internet, why should it continue to allow it access to Internet markets around the world? ”
In U.S. politics, some officials and lawmakers come from what Taiwan calls "provincial families," but the "provincial complex" does not necessarily affect their support for Taiwan. For example, Wu Zhenwei, who was born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and whose parents are from Jiangsu, the mainland, actively promoted the exchange of high-level visits between Taiwan and the United States during his term of office as a congressman, and promoted legislative work such as separating "Taiwanese" from "Chinese" in the US census. In his 12-year congressional career, Wu Zhenwei has proposed 3 bills related to Taiwan and co-signed 40 times. In 2001, he visited Chen Shui-bian in Taiwan and was called "Friend of Taiwan" by Chen.
In the United States, there are also groups with Taiwanese backgrounds that have been working for years to strengthen the DPP's ties with the United States. In August 2019, Tsai Ing-wen visited Central America twice to "transit" the United States, and among the teams that greeted her, the "Taiwan Association" with strong "Taiwan independence" colors and various "Taiwan American" associations dominated, replacing the "Chinese Association" that honored Sun Yat-sen as the "Father of the Nation".
The most important job of these groups is lobbying. For example, in 2017, in order to pass the "Taiwan Travel Law", the "Taiwanese Public Affairs Association" organized the "Taiwan Initiative Week" activities, mobilizing more than 100 "Taiwanese Americans" from all over the United States to rush to Washington, visit the offices of more than 100 US congressmen in one day, and win the support of these politicians by emphasizing their "Taiwanese" identity
"U.S. officials with a Taiwanese background cannot generalize about China's political orientation." Xin Qiang, deputy director of the American Research Center of Fudan University, said in an interview with the Global Times reporter on the 20th that the Chinese community is very complex, and as one of the branches, so is the "Taiwanese". They went to the United States at different times and backgrounds, such as some before 1949, some after 1949, some before the end of martial law in Taiwan, and some after this... This leads to a wide gap in their identity and political orientation.
Under normal circumstances, the second- and third-generation Taiwanese immigrants in the United States identify with Taiwan or the mainland much less than with the United States, and once they sit in the position of the U.S. government, one of the most basic principles they need to abide by is to serve the interests of the United States, not to be responsible for the ancestral homeland of blood, "otherwise they will not be able to sit in this position." This point determines that officials in the US government with Taiwanese backgrounds may have a certain impact on US-Taiwan relations, but it is definitely not decisive.
US media: Congress is more radical in "standing up for Taiwan"
In addition to officials and congressmen with Taiwanese backgrounds, what other "friendly Taiwan" people in the United States? The US "Newsweek" reported that Congress and the military are the two major groups in which the United States supports Taiwan more intensively, among which members of Congress tend to be more radical in supporting Taiwan out of ideological and vote considerations. In the past three years, the US Congress has successively passed a series of bills such as the "Taiwan Travel Act," the "Asia Reassurance Initiative Act," and the "Taiwan Guarantee Act."
The "Taiwan Wired" parliamentary group is an important "pro-Taiwan" force in the US Congress, and was established in the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Taiwan's "Eastern Sen News" said that in the 2020 election, at least 131 "friendly Taiwan" lawmakers were successfully re-elected, including 11 senators and 120 representatives. Taiwan's "Liberty Times," a pro-Green Camp, said that Yin Hove, co-chairman of the Senate "Taiwan Connect," and members of the Group, Cotton, were successfully re-elected. Yin Hough has long supported the strengthening of Taiwan-US military cooperation and led a delegation of parliamentarians to visit Taiwan. Cotton is the sponsor of the Taiwan Guarantee Act and the Taiwan Security Act, and participated in inviting Tsai Ing-wen to address the U.S. Congress.
According to reports, the four co-chairmen of the US House of Representatives "Taiwan Wire" have been re-elected, including Shabo, Díaz-Balat, Sears and Connolly. Sha Bo is one of the proposers of the "Taiwan Travel Law", and he has long been acquainted with and becomes friends with Li Qingtai, the former president of the "Taiwanese Public Affairs Association", for whom Li Qingtai has been contributing to his ideas for many years. His "friendship" with him for more than 20 years made Shabo a representative "pro-Taiwan" member of the US Congress.
In addition to lawmakers, Taiwanese media are also actively looking for senior Officials of the Biden administration who are "friendly" to Taiwan, such as reports that Blinken held talks with Ms. Blinken when she visited the United States during her 2015 campaign for taiwanese leadership. In an April 11 interview with NBC, Blinken said the United States has commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act, and bipartisan commitments have existed for many years. What I can tell you is that anyone who tries to change the status quo by force will make a grave mistake."
At his appointment hearing in January, Blinken said the Biden administration would continue to ensure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself and looked forward to taiwan playing a greater role internationally. However, Taiwan's Lianhe Pao published an article commenting that on the surface, this statement is very positive, but Blinken is a career diplomat, "speaking in public must be a scene." In fact, what he said about the promise to Taiwan was "not new", the important thing is not what he said, "the part that is not said is the point." Blinken said the Biden administration would renew its commitment to Taiwan, but did not say under what conditions it would fulfill its commitments. The article believes that Biden will not be like Trump, deliberately manipulating the "Taiwan card" and interfering with the overall situation of US-China relations.
In Taiwan's Business Week, another U.S. official who is "friendly" to Taiwan is Campbell, indo-Pacific coordinator of the National Security Council. Taiwan's Central News Agency said that in the past, Campbell has visited Taiwan at least six times and met with Tsai Ing-wen, Ma Ying-jeou and Chen Shui-bian. At a symposium last December, Campbell stressed that the era of not understanding Taiwan's strategic importance was over.
However, on the eve of the Biden administration taking office in January this year, Campbell publicly suggested that both China and the United States "take a step back" to ease tit-for-tat tensions, which is considered to be an "important signal" that the United States hopes to re-establish a constructive and rational relationship with China. In early May, Campbell said at a global symposium hosted by the Financial Times that the United States would not publicly make a statement of "assisting in the defense of Taiwan" because of its "major flaws" and the unpredictable consequences of a conflict between the United States and China, or "will fundamentally destroy the global economy in a way that no one can predict." Some scholars have analyzed that the message behind this statement is that the Biden administration is unwilling to significantly adjust the US Taiwan policy under the current situation.
Shin-qiang said that the key figures in the Biden administration's Taiwan policy are Blinken and sullivan, the president's national security adviser, and other senior officials in the field of diplomacy and security. In addition, we can also pay attention to who is the assistant secretary of state and assistant secretary of defense in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs, and then analyze the basic trend and style of the Biden administration's Taiwan policy.
Source: World Wide Web