Hapa-Na Open Letter to President Bush (8/4/2008)

Taiwan Hakka Association for Public Affairs in North America
20734 Seapine Dr., Katy, Texas, U.S.A., 77450

The Honorable President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
August 4, 2008

Dear Honorable President Bush:
We are Taiwanese Americans who are concerned about the welfare of the much isolated and ignored Taiwanese on Taiwan. We believe it is to the interest of the U.S. that Taiwan is properly settled for its rightful international status in accordance with the wills of the twenty three million Taiwanese, rather than falls into the hands of China.
Since Dr. Kissinger initiated the engagement policy toward People’s Republic of China (China) in the 1970s, the U.S. policymakers have not recognized strongly enough the importance of Taiwan in the U.S. long term strategic interests in the Far East Region, in our dealings with China. From the beginning, China wishes international community to grant it the sovereignty over Taiwan. The U.S. disagrees and merely “acknowledges” China’s wishes that Taiwan is a province of China, in open communiqués. But China is persistent on its claim. Its diplomats use every occasion to stress its claim and distort U.S. intention of “acknowledgement” into “recognition”.
The U.S. administrations have too conveniently allowed China to claim as it wishes in terms of its sovereignty over Taiwan. The administrations have gradually yielded its position by way of silence in the face of China’s diplomats when they openly make the claim. If the U.S. position is not properly and openly reaffirmed soon, we will eventually lose Taiwan as a staunch and important ally in the Far East Region. The consequence is a tremendous erosion of our U.S. strategic position in that region and that the loss can never be restored.
Taiwan has been grossly ignored. At the World Health Organization Annual Conference earlier this year, the Chinese representative openly claimed that China has taken care of Taiwanese health issues. The Chinese official statement is the gravest lie a country has ever openly committed in a United Nations domain. The international community knows that China has aimed over a thousand missiles on Taiwan and the two countries are hostile to each other. There is no representative from China of any kind in Taiwan, let alone taking care of Taiwanese health issues. An official lie to the WHO conference should not have been ignored. In our opinion, the world community’s lack of response to the apparent lie has down graded the dignity of the world organization. It is an unbelievable appeasement gesture to China at the expense of the human rights of the 23 million Taiwanese. We Americans can not be proud of the behavior of our representatives in the management of the Chinese lie at the WHO conference.
China officially yielded its sovereignty of Taiwan to Japan permanently in 1895, witnessed by our President Roosevelt. Since Japan relinquished its sovereignty of Taiwan in 1945, there has been no international treaty that officially settles the international status of Taiwan. Therefore, it is the obligation of the U.S. and the U.N. to uphold the undefined status of Taiwan against the wishes of China. We urge you to take any opportunity to reaffirm a world history that Taiwan is not a province of China since its inception in 1949 and the U.S. policy that the future of Taiwan must be decided with the consent of the 23 million Taiwanese. We must uphold the universal democratic value that our forefathers have profoundly established. We must strive to convince a major power as well as a small country if we mean to promote it worldwide, as you have proclaimed from time to time.

Respectfully yours,
David C. Lai, President