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It comments on what is taking place in China and that country's irresponsible conduct toward Taiwan.
For years before the United States recognized the People's Republic of China, I had favored dual recognition, as we did with East Germany and West Germany.
But for reasons I understand, in part to keep China on an anti-Soviet course, the United States continued to follow a one China policy. It was wrong before, and it is wrong now.
As the editorial points out, Taiwan has been under Beijing's rule only 4 years in the last century.
I ask that the New York Times editorial be printed in the Record at this point, and I urge my colleagues to read it, if they have not already.
The editorial follows:
Bullying Taiwan
China has embarked on an escalating campaign of military maneuvers meant to intimidate Taiwan and undermine its President, Lee Teng-hui. Washington, as much as it wants to calm troubled relations with Beijing, must firmly signal its opposition to this campaign. Ties with China cannot be built on tolerance for provocative displays of military force and efforts to destabilize Taiwan.
Last week China began its second missile exercise this summer in the waters surrounding Taiwan. More are planned in the weeks ahead, timed to coincide with the campaign to choose Taiwan's first democratically elected President next March.
Mr. Lee, who led Taiwan from dictatorship to democracy after coming to power as the handpicked successor of Chiang Kai-shek and his son, is now the front-runner in that election. But Beijing hopes its military muscle can frighten Taiwan into choosing someone more malleable.
Mr. Lee has drawn China's ire by a series by personal visits abroad, most prominently a May trip to attend his college reunion in the United States. Beijing is upset because these actions challenge its contention that Taiwan is an integral part of China and that any separate political identity for Taiwan diminishes China's sovereignty.
This `one-China policy' had its origins in 1949, when Chiang moved the seat of his defeated Government to Taiwan. From then on, Chiang in Taipei and Mao Zedong in Beijing each insisted his own regime was the legitimate government of China, with authority over both the mainland and Taiwan.
When it recognized Chiang, the United States found the one-China formula convenient. When America switched recognition to the Communists in 1979, Beijing insisted that Washington continue to honor the point. The United States therefore has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
For Beijing, the one-China concept has been the cornerstone of normalized relations with Washington. Tampering with it would throw the entire relationship into turnoil. Yet continued Chinese military provocations could force the United States to re-evaluate its position.
While diplomatically convenient, the formula has never corresponded very closely to realty. While most of Taiwan's people are descended from Chinese who migrated there several centuries ago, the island, 100 miles off the Chinese coast, has been under Beijing's direct rule for only four years in the last century.
Today Taiwan, with 21 million people, is a prosperous democracy and America's seventh-largest trading partner. Though its businessmen have strong economic ties with the mainland, few of its citizens want to come under the rule of the harsh Communist regime in Beijing. But most Taiwanese also believe it would be a fatal mistake for Taiwan to provoke China by pushing too hard for the diplomatic trappings of independence.
China is trying to intimidate Taiwan into reining in its diplomacy. It is also trying to warn outside powers against granting visas to Taiwanese political leaders. That China should be pressing these positions is not surprising. That it should do so by military means, and in the process undermine political stability in Taiwan, is disturbing and cannot be ignored.
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