Taiwan and the Foreign Investor

Abstract

N OT EVERY STUDENT of Chinese affairs will readily accept the formula of One China, still divisible which the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune' presented last April, thus probably expressing the hopes of many of their readers on both sides of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. For the last five years or so, China and the United States have had to live with their inability to resolve the Taiwan question. Both accepted the formulation of the Shanghai communique of 27 February I972, according to which all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.2 On the subject of a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question, the two sides could find no common ground. In fact, it would have been naive to expect the removal of ambiguities on either side. Having been reinstated last July in his party, government and military positions, Teng Hsiao-p'ing lost no time in reiterating the official view of the People's Republic of China that Peking has the right to rule over Taiwan and to choose when to exercise this right. No such claims are acceptable to the Government of the Republic of China in Taipei. There is thus stalemate on either side of the political divide. In the absence of an attempt at forceful occupation of the Island-a hazardous undertaking in whatever circumstances it were to occur-the continued separate existence of Taiwan cannot thus be ruled out. In this situation, Japan's ingenious formula of diplomatic recognition in Peking, side by side with her trading presence in Taipei, was perhaps not as unrealistic as it might have seemed when it was first conceived. No doubt, a clear-cut solution would have appeared to be preferable at the time, but it might well have led to a new form of confrontation even more dangerous than the present untidy situation. In any event, it is rarely in the nature of international