[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT OF 2013
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MARKUP
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 419
__________
APRIL 25, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Chairman
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
MATT SALMON, Arizona Samoa
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania BRAD SHERMAN, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
LUKE MESSER, Indiana WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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Page
MARKUP OF
H.R. 419, To strengthen and clarify the commercial, cultural, and
other relations between the people of the United States and the
people of Taiwan, as codified in the Taiwan Relations Act, and
for other purposes............................................. 2
Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 419 offered by
the Honorable Steve Chabot, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, and chairman, Subcommittee on Asia and the
Pacific...................................................... 27
APPENDIX
Markup notice.................................................... 58
Markup minutes................................................... 59
THE TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT OF 2013
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THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve Chabot
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Chabot. The subcommittee will come to order.
Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 419, the Taiwan Policy
Act of 2013, for purposes of markup and move its recommendation
to the full committee.
Without objection, the bipartisan amendment in the nature
of a substitute provided to all members earlier this week will
be the base text and is considered as read and open for
amendment at any point.
[H.R. 419 and the amendment in the nature of a substitute
follow:]
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Mr. Chabot. I will now recognize myself for the purpose of
making a brief opening statement. I have promised my colleagues
that we will try to keep this short, so I will not use all of
my 5 minutes.
First, let me thank the ranking member, Mr. Faleomavaega,
for his assistance in crafting this bipartisan amendment in the
nature of a substitute and I, of course, want to commend and
thank Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen for sponsoring this legislation;
we will hear from her very shortly.
I am proud to be a cosponsor in this Congress, as I have
been in the past, and as my colleagues know, the Taiwan Policy
Act was adopted unanimously by the Foreign Affairs Committee in
November 2011. I hope it will be adopted this afternoon in this
subcommittee in a similar fashion.
As one of the original founding co-chairs of the
Congressional Taiwan Caucus, I am a strong supporter of this
legislation that would strengthen the relationship between our
two Nations. I want to emphasize the word two Nations. Taiwan
is a democracy. It is a loyal friend and ally, and it deserves
to be treated as such by the United States Government.
I won't go through the bill point by point, but I do want
to focus on a couple of issues. First, one only needs to look
at a map to see that Taiwan sits in a very dangerous part of
the world. When I first came to Congress in 1995, Communist
China had a number of missiles pointed at Taiwan and each year
since, that number has grown from a couple of hundred to
approximately 1,600 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles
aimed at Taiwan today, our friend and ally.
Since 2006, Taiwan has been unsuccessful in procuring new
F-16 C/D fighter jets. I am told that the Obama administration
currently ``has under consideration'' an arms sale package that
may include the F-16 C/D. This legislation would authorize
those sales and would provide a very important security shield
to Taiwan as it faces potential aggression from China.
I also want to briefly discuss a matter which this
legislation addresses, the issue of restrictions on diplomatic
visits by high ranking Taiwanese officials, which is something
I have always felt is both insulting and counterproductive. I
can remember joining a number of my colleagues, about 25 years
ago flying up to New York City one evening after votes--about
25 of us went--to meet with then Taiwanese President Chen Shui-
bian, a democratically-elected leader and a great friend of the
United States. We traveled to New York to meet with him because
he was not allowed to travel to our capital here in Washington,
DC, because it might offend the bullies in Beijing.
I remember veiled threats from Communist China when former
Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui, known as the father of Taiwanese
democracy, wanted to visit his alma mater at Cornell
University. And I vividly remember meeting Taiwanese legislator
Mark Chen in our Capitol here in Washington. Only a few weeks
later, I had to travel to Baltimore to meet with him because he
had become Foreign Minister, and because of his new position,
he was no longer welcome to Washington.
That is just plain nonsense. The Taiwan Policy Act before
us this afternoon will address that issue by permitting senior
leaders of Taiwan to enter the United States under conditions
of appropriate respect and permit meetings between high level
Taiwanese and U.S. officials in all U.S. Executive departments.
This is an excellent bill, which in a number of areas,
strengthens our relationship with our friend and ally. I urge
my colleagues to support it. I will now recognize my good
friend from American Samoa, the ranking member of this
subcommittee, Eni Faleomavaega.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
commend you for your leadership and initiative that you have
taken also in working closely with our colleague, Chairwoman
Ros-Lehtinen, in crafting this piece of legislation which I
think is a positive direction in terms of making sure that the
leaders of the people of Taiwan are given every expression of
self-determination in their ability to practice a democratic
form of government, as they are doing now. And doing so, too,
Mr. Chairman, I want to recognize the presence of the
gentleman, not only was he the author and the primary moving
force in establishing what we then passed into law, which is
the Taiwan Relations Act, a former chairman of this
subcommittee, the gentleman from New York, my dear friend, and
I am sure you know him, Congressman Lester Wolf. He is here
with us. I appreciate your being here with us, Congressman
Wolf.
And I think the cornerstone of this whole Taiwan Relations
Act as it relates to some of the changes that we are about to
make in amending some of the provisions are the fact that we
want to be absolutely certain that the people and the leaders
of Taiwan continue to practice their democracy. And as you
know, it is my understanding that in the advent of what
happened in the, how the whole world had changed its course in
terms of President Nixon's ability then to provide a dialogue
and then eventually I guess you might say literally changed the
course of history in looking at and Taiwan was one of the
probably the central issue of whether or not the leaders of
China were going to establish a better working relationship
with our country. And as it turned out, Taiwan was left
purposely to the extent if there is ever a, my understanding in
principle, that if there is ever to be change on the political
landscape in terms of how Taiwan is to be governed, it is to be
done peacefully between the people and the leaders of Beijing
as well as with the leaders of the people of Taiwan.
And I think the Taiwan Relations Act has been that bastion
of making sure that the people of Taiwan are fully protected in
that regard of their right of self-determination and democracy.
What happens in the future? As you know, the advent of what
has happened in recent years is the elections where the people
of Taiwan have made their wishes known for a different policy
in terms of how to deal with Beijing in that respect in terms
of its political status. That is entirely left out. But on the
question of promoting greater economic and trade relations
between Beijing and Taiwan, this has become true now. What I
have always been curious about, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that
before this change of policy, in actuality, Taiwan and China
have had over a $100-billion trade relationship unofficially
and informally for all those years prior to this change now
where now they are a better closer working relationship as far
as economics and trade development is concerned.
So with that, I want to commend you again for your bringing
this piece of legislation before the committee. And as I said,
I do support the principles and what you are trying to achieve
here, and I look forward to working with our colleagues to see
if there are any other positive amendments that will be helpful
in bringing this legislation to a successful completion before
we move it on to the full committee.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. I would
like to thank the ranking member for his statement.
I would now like to recognize the gentlelady from Florida,
the former chair of the full Foreign Affairs Committee and now
the chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I thank
you deeply, and Mr. Faleomavaega, and I thank your dedicated,
hardworking staff for working with my lazy bones--no--with my
also hardworking dedicated staff in order to bring this
bipartisan bill to markup this afternoon.
I would also like to thank the co-chairs of the
Congressional Taiwan Caucus, Albio Sires, Mario Diaz-Balart,
Gerry Connolly, and John Carter, for fully supporting and
cosponsoring this important legislation.
I am so glad that you pointed out Mr. Wolf's attendance
here today because he knows how important the Taiwan Relations
Act has been to the relation between our two Nations, the
cornerstone of our policy, and Taiwan continues to be such an
essential ally of the United States. This bill reiterates to
the world, and more importantly, it tells the Taiwanese people
just how deeply we value that friendship.
This bill will further strengthen our relations by, as you
already had pointed out in your opening statements, permitting
senior Taiwanese leaders to meet with U.S. officials in all
executive branches, authorizing the sale of F-16 C/D fighter
aircraft to the Armed Forces of Taiwan, authorizing the
transfer of decommissioned class guided missile frigates to
Taiwan and supporting Taiwan membership in international
organizations such as the United Nations and the International
Civil Aviation Organization.
So Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, thank you again for
your hard work in bringing this bill to markup. It is an
important step forward in solidifying our close alliance with
our democratic ally, Taiwan, and I urge my colleagues to
support its passage. I thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member.
Mr. Chabot. I thank the gentlelady and she yields back.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Will the chairman yield?
Mr. Chabot. Yes.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank my
dear friend from Florida for her comments and want to note of
interest is the fact that Taiwan currently has formal
diplomatic relations with 23 nations in the world and this is
something of an irony in terms of how do we work out a
situation in terms of dealing with Taiwan. And as you mentioned
earlier, I remember distinctly when President Lee tried to
visit his alma mater, Cornell University, where he received his
doctorate in agricultural science and there was a big boo-hoo
as to what is wrong the making a visit just for academic
purposes and to do that, and I recall that very distinctly that
caused an international, which to me it is really not that, I
think it was, it is very good. We need to open this up.
If we allow countries that are of highly questionable
reputation for their leaders to come to our country, why are we
not extending the same courtesy for leaders and people like
Taiwan that practice democracy?
Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. The Chair will reclaim the time.
I would also like to acknowledge, as some of my colleagues
have, the importance of Congressman Wolf. We worked together
and have seen each other in Taiwan and here in the United
States and New York and elsewhere working on Taiwan-American
issues and I thank you for your leadership both in Congress and
since you have left, Congressman.
Are there other members who would like to speak on Taiwan?
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, is recognized.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you Ranking
Member. U.S.-Taiwan ties today undoubtedly remain strong;
however, our operative approach to this vital relationship is
currently shackled by many self-imposed and counterproductive
constraints that exacerbate Taiwan's diplomatic, political and
economic isolation. While China has increased its leverage and
pressure on Taiwan forcing it into its orbit, we are missing
opportunities to leverage Taiwan's considerable strengths and
capabilities as a reliable and like-minded partner in
confronting common challenges.
In light of the momentous challenges that have occurred
both within and outside of Taiwan over the last few decades, it
is time for us to formulate a new vision in Washington for a
bilateral relationship. I believe we shall break through the
barriers of conventional wisdom and mainstream thinking and
work toward the normalization of relations with Taiwan as we
did 40 years ago with China.
I believe as you do, Mr. Chairman, that the legislation we
are considering today will do just that, and I thank you and
the ranking member, and I yield back.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman yields back. Are there any other
members who would like to make a statement?
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, 2 years ago, when we were
debating this issue, there was a side, a little side issue
there that was going on and that was--but it was very
indicative of what the Taiwan Relations Act and what Taiwan is
all about. And what it was is the Falun Gong, which is of
course a Chinese native religious organization dealing with
yoga and meditation, who are now being brutally suppressed by
the Communist Chinese regime in Beijing, that they had over the
years been able to broadcast on a television satellite that was
located in Taiwan and actually a majority of the share of it is
owned by the Taiwan Government, well, during the last, 2 years
ago, there was a discussion about Taiwan making friends with
Beijing by basically joining in on this suppression of the
Falun Gong by not letting them have access to these TV
broadcasts. And I called up President Ma at the time and asked
him to take that into consideration, to please permit the Falun
Gong to continue their broadcasts otherwise, and this is very
symbolic to those of us who want to know whether or not
standing up for Taiwan, why should we stand up for them if they
are doing things like this? And let me add that the Taiwanese
Government, President Weng responded, and the Falun Gong were
not kicked off the TV station.
Let us hope this year I would again call on the Taiwan
Government because 2 years ago they only got a 2-year contract
and they are up again, and I would hope that the people of
Taiwan, especially the government in Taiwan, if it needs to be
treated with any special consideration, it won't be given that
or they can't expect that if they are treating--if they are
doing the bidding of the Communist Chinese regime in Beijing by
entering into the suppression of the Falun Gong.
So I would hope that they would continue to permit this
group to have access to the airwaves and demonstrate that they
are an independent and free country.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. Having met with Falun Gong
myself many times over the years, I think the gentleman's
remarks are absolutely correct and the repression that they
have seen, particularly in China, is shameful and some of the
photos of the torture they have gone through are extremely
disturbing. Thank you for raising the issue.
Are there other members that would like to make a
statement? If not, are there any amendments?
Hearing no amendments, then, the question occurs on the
motion to report the bill favorably, as amended.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed, no.
The ayes have it in the opinion of the Chair, and the
motion is approved.
Without objection, the bill will be reported favorably to
the full committee in the form of a single amendment in the
nature of a substitute and the staff is directed to make any
technical and conforming amendments.
I want to thank all our members and staff and others who
are interested in being here today and for their assistance and
cooperation in today's markup.
If there is no further business to come before the
subcommittee, the subcommittee is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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