Visa Time Again on Taiwan

An old ally braces for new troubles

One reliable barometer of Washington's relations with Peking has been the visa window at the U.S. consulate in Taipei. When American diplomatic activity with the mainland Chinese steps up, so do applications from Taiwanese for U.S. residency permits. Right now business is brisk.

Life is going on normally in Taiwan, but other signs of jitters are visible all across the prosperous, 250-mile-long island that lies 100 miles off the mainland coast. Farmers, taxi drivers and businessmen all nervously ask American visitors about the Carter Administration's timetable for recognition of Peking. Universities have been running newspaper ads offering translating services so that Taiwanese can express their worries to Washington in English; in recent weeks 142,000 such letters have been sent to the White House and Congress. Instead of warning smokers about health dangers, packs of Taiwanese cigarettes carry a chin-up slogan: "Maintain self-respect and self-strengthening: stay calm in the face of adversity."

Keeping cool, of course, does not mean giving up. Far from it. Because it has refused to abandon its fundamental tenet--that Peking's leaders are revolutionary upstarts and not the legitimate rulers of China--the Nationalist regime established in Taipei by Chiang Kai-shek when he fled the mainland in 1949 has become a diplomatic Ishmael. Since 1971, when Taiwan was expelled from the U.N. to make room for Peking, a total of 39 countries have severed relations with Taipei. Today only 23 nations maintain diplomatic relations, and the U.S. and staunchly anti-Communist Saudi Arabia are the only heavyweights among them.

At first, Taiwan's leaders, including Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, 67, Chiang's son, hoped that Carter might stall the U.S. rapprochement with Peking. The Communist regime, they figured, would not measure up to Carter's human rights standards. But that thin hope was dashed in June, when Secretary of State Vance declared in a speech that Washington was determined to speed up the rapprochement with Peking--and did not mention Taiwan at all.

Nonetheless, Taiwan's lobbying effort in the U.S. has remained relatively low key. Taiwan supporters have pushed hard to get city councils and state legislatures to pass resolutions opposing the establishment of full relations with Peking "at the expense of Taiwan's interests" (21 legislatures have done so). Officials in the Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung got their counterparts in Plains, Ga., to join in a sister-city declaration of friendship, and extended a come-visit invitation to Miss Lillian (she politely declined). In Washington the Koreagate scandal has cooled Taiwan's lobbying. Exchanges of cultural and economic missions continue. But because of the "Tongsun Park syndrome," says Taiwan's Washington ambassador, James C.H. Shen, Congressmen's trips to Taiwan have stopped. Until the program was halted last year, some 30 members of Congress and nearly 200 of their staffers had made visits to Taiwan.

So far, Taiwan's jitters are diplomatic, not economic. Taiwan is today a mini-industrial power. Although the island's population--16.6 million--is only one-fiftieth of mainland China's, its trade with the U.S. is 14 times greater than that of its huge neighbor--nearly $5 billion last year. Taiwan's robust growth rate--more than 10% in most of the years since the 1960s--has boosted its G.N.P. to just over $17 billion. During the worldwide recession of 1974-75, inflation whirled up to a 40% annual rate for a while, but the regime has since brought that down to less than 3%.

Taiwan has taken care to maintain relations with its trading partners who have cut off formal ties through the establishment of quasi-official trade and cultural offices. By far the most important of these "private" relationships is with Japan, whose so-called Interchange Association with Taiwan is staffed by Foreign Office officials on "temporary leave." Japan does more business with Taiwan today than before it broke with Taipei and established relations with Peking in 1972.

Then why all the jitters over a possible break with the U.S.? Some experts maintain that the abrogation of the American defense commitment to Taiwan would result in a scenario in which an emboldened Peking would attempt to frighten foreign companies and investors away from the island by threatening economic reprisals or military action. "If some people are scared off," says one top government official, "the economic consequences for us could be disastrous."

Taiwan could probably fend off a military attack from the mainland. Taiwan's 500-plane air force, which includes advanced U.S. F-5E fighters, is considered superior to the mainland's obsolescent fleet; moreover, the Communists do not have the amphibious craft needed to land troops on the island. Still, a U.S. decision to break its formal ties with Taipei could be devastating to Taiwanese morale. But until it happens--if it does--there is no way of knowing just how serious the psychological blow to Taiwan will be if it loses, finally, its most powerful ally.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.