Taiwan Legal: What Does US Law Say About Taiwan?

-Revisiting the Taiwan Relations Act

Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Time: 8:30-9:30 am (Eastern)

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About the event

One of the most complicated issues in contemporary international relations is the status of the self-governing island of Taiwan and its government in Taipei, formally called the government of the Republic of China. Is Taiwan a sovereign state? What is the legal relationship between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China? Is United Nations membership essential for statehood? How should other states engage with Taiwan? How much of US support for Taiwan is grounded in law and how much in policy? Does international law recognize Taiwan’s right of self-defense or the right of its friends to come to its aid?

 Over the coming months, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute will host a series of speakers to address these questions from different perspectives. The first speaker will be Richard Bush, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Bush led US engagement with Taiwan from 1997 to 2002 as chairman and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the mechanism through which the US government conducts substantive relations with Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic relations. Bush will explain the genesis and meaning of the Taiwan Relations Act,  a 1979 domestic law that is frequently referenced but apparently not often read. Bush has consistently explained that the TRA is not the functional equivalent of a defense treaty. As we mark 45 years since the TRA’s passage, he will explain how it was drafted and why it matters despite saying “less than meets the eye.”   

About the speaker:

Richard Bush is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and previously was director of the center. He joined Brookings in July 2002 after serving nearly five years as chairman and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he was a congressional staffer, first on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs and later for the full committee. From 1995-1997, he became national intelligence officer for East Asia and a member of the National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analytic work of the intelligence community. He has written numerous books, book chapters, and articles about Taiwan, US-Taiwan-relations and China-Taiwan relations. Recent publications include “Uncharted Strait: The Future of China-Taiwan Relations” (Brookings, 2013); “Hong Kong in the Shadow of China: Living with the Leviathan” (Brookings, 2016); “Difficult Choices: Taiwan’s Quest for Security and the Good Life” (Brookings 2021), and “U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?” (Brookings Press, 2023). Bush has a PhD in political science from Columbia University. 

Here is the text of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, 22 USC 3301 through 3316.

Here is the text of Richard Bush’s 2014 talk, The Taiwan Relations Act After 35 Years.

Here is Richard Bush’s 2017 One China Policy Primer.