- Published on
The Hoover Institution's Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region invites you to The Taiwan Relations Act at 47: Taiwan's Evolving Hedging Strategy amidst Intensifying Global Competition on Monday, April 6, 2026 from 4:00-5:30 pm PT in the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building, Room 160.
As we mark the 47th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), the geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific has reached a critical inflection point. The Hoover Institution is honored to host Dr. David Lee for an in-depth discussion on Taiwan’s evolving "Hedging Strategy" amidst intensifying global competition.
Since 1979, the TRA has served as the bedrock of unofficial relations between the United States and Taiwan, ensuring regional peace and stability. However, as the complexity of the Taipei-Washington-Beijing triangle grows, Taiwan's strategic maneuvering has shifted from traditional diplomacy to a multifaceted hedging approach.
This discussion will explore the resilience of the TRA to assess how the legal framework of the Taiwan Relations Act adapts to modern security challenges 47 years later, and an analysis of Taiwan’s current policy of balancing economic integration, military deterrence, and international participation through the strategic hedging.
Since 1979, the TRA has served as the bedrock of unofficial relations between the United States and Taiwan, ensuring regional peace and stability. However, as the complexity of the Taipei-Washington-Beijing triangle grows, Taiwan's strategic maneuvering has shifted from traditional diplomacy to a multifaceted hedging approach.
This discussion will explore the resilience of the TRA to assess how the legal framework of the Taiwan Relations Act adapts to modern security challenges 47 years later, and an analysis of Taiwan’s current policy of balancing economic integration, military deterrence, and international participation through the strategic hedging.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dr. David Ta-wei Lee is a distinguished Taiwanese statesman and career diplomat whose service spans over four decades. He has held the highest echelons of power across Taiwan’s foreign policy, national security, and cross-strait sectors. He is the chairman of Straits Exchange Foundation in 2020 and from 2023 to 2024. He formerly served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2018, Secretary-General of the National Security Council of Taiwan from 2018 to 2020, and the Secretary-General to the President since 2020 to 2023. He was also the Representative to the United States (2004–2007), Canada (2007–2012), and the European Union/Belgium (2001–2004).
As a seasoned "veteran" of the diplomatic corps, Dr. Lee is highly respected for his professionalism and non-partisan approach. Moving from the Foreign Ministry to the National Security Council and the Presidential Office, Dr. Lee transformed traditional diplomacy into a broader national security strategy.
In 2019, while serving as Secretary-General of the NSC, Dr. Lee met with then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton. This marked the first meeting between top national security officials of the two countries since 1979, representing a historic milestone in U.S.-Taiwan relations.
Dr. David Lee occupies a unique place in the history of the Taiwan Relations Act (1979), serving as both a witness to its creation and a guardian of its implementation. A leading scholar on the TRA, Dr. Lee authored The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act, published by Oxford University Press. Derived from his doctoral research at the University of Virginia, this work remains a definitive analysis of the 1979 legislative struggle between the U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch.
During the pivotal moment when the U.S. shifted recognition from Taiwan to China, Dr. Lee was a researcher at the time, and Dr. Frederick Chien was the Deputy Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He personally attended the Congressional hearings that shaped the TRA, gaining firsthand insight into the legal framework for unofficial relations.
Throughout his career, particularly as Representative to the U.S. (2004–2007) and Foreign Minister, Dr. Lee was the primary official responsible for ensuring the U.S. upheld its commitments under the TRA. He frequently advocated for the "Six Assurances" and worked to ensure that the TRA remained a living document capable of supporting Taiwan’s security and arms sales.
Dr. David Ta-wei Lee is a distinguished Taiwanese statesman and career diplomat whose service spans over four decades. He has held the highest echelons of power across Taiwan’s foreign policy, national security, and cross-strait sectors. He is the chairman of Straits Exchange Foundation in 2020 and from 2023 to 2024. He formerly served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2018, Secretary-General of the National Security Council of Taiwan from 2018 to 2020, and the Secretary-General to the President since 2020 to 2023. He was also the Representative to the United States (2004–2007), Canada (2007–2012), and the European Union/Belgium (2001–2004).
As a seasoned "veteran" of the diplomatic corps, Dr. Lee is highly respected for his professionalism and non-partisan approach. Moving from the Foreign Ministry to the National Security Council and the Presidential Office, Dr. Lee transformed traditional diplomacy into a broader national security strategy.
In 2019, while serving as Secretary-General of the NSC, Dr. Lee met with then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton. This marked the first meeting between top national security officials of the two countries since 1979, representing a historic milestone in U.S.-Taiwan relations.
Dr. David Lee occupies a unique place in the history of the Taiwan Relations Act (1979), serving as both a witness to its creation and a guardian of its implementation. A leading scholar on the TRA, Dr. Lee authored The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act, published by Oxford University Press. Derived from his doctoral research at the University of Virginia, this work remains a definitive analysis of the 1979 legislative struggle between the U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch.
During the pivotal moment when the U.S. shifted recognition from Taiwan to China, Dr. Lee was a researcher at the time, and Dr. Frederick Chien was the Deputy Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He personally attended the Congressional hearings that shaped the TRA, gaining firsthand insight into the legal framework for unofficial relations.
Throughout his career, particularly as Representative to the U.S. (2004–2007) and Foreign Minister, Dr. Lee was the primary official responsible for ensuring the U.S. upheld its commitments under the TRA. He frequently advocated for the "Six Assurances" and worked to ensure that the TRA remained a living document capable of supporting Taiwan’s security and arms sales.
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At Hoover, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Program on the US, China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for thirty-two years as founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on US and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019; paperback ed. 2020) analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. His other books include In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Šumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).
Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. is Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he oversees both the Global Policy and Strategy Initiative and the George P. Shultz Energy Policy Working Group. He retired from a 39-year career with the US Navy in 2004. He has also served in the private and nonprofit sectors in areas of energy and nuclear security. A 1969 graduate of the US Naval Academy, Ellis was designated a naval aviator in 1971. His service as a navy fighter pilot included tours with two carrier-based fighter squadrons and assignment as commanding officer of an F/A-18 strike fighter squadron. In 1991, he assumed command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After selection to rear admiral, in 1996, he served as a carrier battle group commander, leading contingency response operations in the Taiwan Strait. His shore assignments included numerous senior military staff tours. Senior command positions included commander in chief, US Naval Forces, Europe, and commander in chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe, during a time of historic NATO expansion. He led US and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Ellis’s final assignment in the navy was as commander of the US Strategic Command during a time of challenge and change. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of US strategic and space forces, reporting directly to the secretary of defense.
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On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution held a Taiwan Roundtable Discussion On Cold War / Martial Law Formations of Taiwanese America on Monday, May 13, 2024 from 2-3:30 p.m. PT in Stauffer Auditorium.
This event features Wendy Cheng, Professor of American Studies and core faculty in the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at Scripps College. She is the author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism (University of Washington Press, 2023) and The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), and coauthor of A People’s Guide to Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2012).
This event features Wendy Cheng, Professor of American Studies and core faculty in the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at Scripps College. She is the author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism (University of Washington Press, 2023) and The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), and coauthor of A People’s Guide to Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2012).
From the 1960s to 1980s, more than a hundred thousand Taiwanese students migrated to the US for graduate study in science, technology, engineering, and medicine fields as part of the special Cold War relationship between the US and the authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT) government in Taiwan. This same time period overlapped with a 38-year period of martial law in Taiwan, during which the KMT surveilled and terrorized Taiwanese nationals not only in Taiwan but also in the U.S., Japan, and other locations around the world. In the U.S., this occurred with the full knowledge and tacit permission of the US state.
With information drawn from extensive interviews and archival research, we'll discuss how Taiwanese students were politicized and organized themselves on U.S. university campuses under these dual conditions of selective Cold War migration and martial law, and how their politics were more heterogeneous and far-reaching than how they are typically remembered today.
With information drawn from extensive interviews and archival research, we'll discuss how Taiwanese students were politicized and organized themselves on U.S. university campuses under these dual conditions of selective Cold War migration and martial law, and how their politics were more heterogeneous and far-reaching than how they are typically remembered today.
My opening remarks are below:
Before I turn the microphone over to Prof. Cheng. I’d also like to offer a couple observations about this topic.
I have been wishing for a long time that someone would write this book. The field of Taiwan studies has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, but the issue of spying and harassment of Taiwanese students in the United States has been almost invisible in English-language scholarship and quite sensitive among Taiwanese communities.
These episodes deserve a lot more attention.
First, the Taiwanese overseas student experience has deep historical significance for American academia. As Prof. Cheng documents in the book, there are dozens of campuses with documented cases of spying. Stanford is among them. Let me reiterate that. This university had agents of a foreign power reporting on the political attitudes and activities of students, with real consequences not just for themselves but their families and friends back home. It’s important that people here be aware of this history and the chilling effect it had on academic freedom for these communities.
Now, Taiwan has come a long way since that time, a development that is worth celebrating. But it is still wrestling with the legacies of the authoritarian era. And in the search for transitional justice, one of the most important and powerful acts is truth telling. In this book, Wendy tells difficult truths – about the long reach of the martial-law-era regime in Taiwan, about U.S. government complicity or indifference, and about the struggles over Taiwan’s status on American campuses – struggles that have mostly been forgotten after Taiwan democratized and a new wave of students from the PRC changed the locus of contention.
Second, the debate over academic freedom and foreign coercion has obvious contemporary relevance. American universities are once again confronting questions about transnational repression, or “sharp power,” “foreign influence operations,” or whatever other terms we might use to describe this phenomenon, especially but not only from the authoritarian People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the current debates over academic freedom that are roiling many university campuses around the country, we are in danger of missing a crucial distinction: the curtailing of speech, academic inquiry, and political organizing on university campuses via the covert, coercive acts of a foreign government are a gross violation of that fundamental freedom. As Prof. Cheng documents, American universities did not respond well in previous decades to this coercive activity when it was directed against students from Taiwan. It should be our hope that they do a better job in the current environment, now that students from other countries face similar threats.
With that, I will turn the mic over to Wendy Cheng. Thank you.
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On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to a book talk on Divided Allies: Taiwan, the United States, and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia, with Hsiao-ting Lin on Thursday, June 1, 2023 from 4:00 - 5:00 PM PT.
Register here to attend this virtual talk.
Professor Lin’s book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan’s secret operations in Asia, Taiwan’s Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, it reevaluates Taiwan’s foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric.
Register here to attend this virtual talk.
Professor Lin’s book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan’s secret operations in Asia, Taiwan’s Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, it reevaluates Taiwan’s foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric.
About the Speaker
Hsiao-ting Lin is a research fellow and curator of the Modern China and Taiwan collection at the Hoover Institution, for which he collects material on China and Taiwan, as well as China-related materials in other East Asian countries. He holds a BA in political science from National Taiwan University (1994) and an MA in international law and diplomacy from National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1997). He received his DPhil in oriental studies in 2003 from the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on modern Chinese and Taiwanese politics, history, and ethnic minorities, including Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan (2016); Modern China’s Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West (2011); and Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (2006).
Hsiao-ting Lin is a research fellow and curator of the Modern China and Taiwan collection at the Hoover Institution, for which he collects material on China and Taiwan, as well as China-related materials in other East Asian countries. He holds a BA in political science from National Taiwan University (1994) and an MA in international law and diplomacy from National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1997). He received his DPhil in oriental studies in 2003 from the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on modern Chinese and Taiwanese politics, history, and ethnic minorities, including Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan (2016); Modern China’s Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West (2011); and Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (2006).
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It's alive! This book volume on Taiwan politics during the Ma Ying-jeou years (2008-2016), which I've edited with Chu Yun-han and Larry Diamond, just arrived in the mail from Lynne Rienner Publishers this weekend.
This is our attempt at a deep dive into various aspects of Ma-era politics, including party politics and elections, political institutions and governance challenges, trends in public opinion and democratic values, civil society and social movements, and cross-Strait and US-Taiwan-PRC relations. This look at the Ma years parallels somewhat our earlier book on the Chen Shui-bian era.
We were fortunate to be able to assemble a great group of contributors for this book--about half based in Taiwan and half abroad--who offer a variety of perspectives on the politics of the Ma years. The scholarship here draws on years of conferences, papers, and conversations that started even before President Ma left office, including with some of the key participants in and outside of the Ma administration. (Chapter 15, for instance, is by Szu-yin Ho, who served for two years as deputy Secretary-General of Ma's National Security Council.) This sort of cross-national collaboration is less common than it should be (in part because it's logistically hard to pull off!), but I am convinced the final product is much stronger for it.
Among the many great contributions here, let me especially highlight three that provide original, provocative answers to important questions about the Ma era:
For more thoughts on those issues and a broader overview of the book, check out the introductory chapter, which is available ungated from the publisher's website.
This is our attempt at a deep dive into various aspects of Ma-era politics, including party politics and elections, political institutions and governance challenges, trends in public opinion and democratic values, civil society and social movements, and cross-Strait and US-Taiwan-PRC relations. This look at the Ma years parallels somewhat our earlier book on the Chen Shui-bian era.
We were fortunate to be able to assemble a great group of contributors for this book--about half based in Taiwan and half abroad--who offer a variety of perspectives on the politics of the Ma years. The scholarship here draws on years of conferences, papers, and conversations that started even before President Ma left office, including with some of the key participants in and outside of the Ma administration. (Chapter 15, for instance, is by Szu-yin Ho, who served for two years as deputy Secretary-General of Ma's National Security Council.) This sort of cross-national collaboration is less common than it should be (in part because it's logistically hard to pull off!), but I am convinced the final product is much stronger for it.
Among the many great contributions here, let me especially highlight three that provide original, provocative answers to important questions about the Ma era:
- In Chapter 3, Austin Wang explains how Tsai Ing-wen emerged from obscurity as unrivaled leader of the DPP during its years in opposition, despite having never previously held elected office;
- In Chapter 4, Nathan Batto shows how President Ma's recurrent troubles with the legislature had more to do with deep divides within the ruling KMT than they did with the obstructionist tactics of the opposition DPP and with Ma's party rival, Speaker Wang Jin-pyng;
- In Chapter 7, Isaac Shih-hao Huang and Shing-yuan Sheng demonstrate that having a majority in the Legislative Yuan does not mean a party has complete control over the Legislative Yuan, and that the legislature's decentralized law-making process makes it challenging for the executive branch to get high-priority legislation approved, whether or not the president's party holds a majority.
For more thoughts on those issues and a broader overview of the book, check out the introductory chapter, which is available ungated from the publisher's website.
Table of Contents:
- The Dynamics of Democracy During the Ma Ying-jeou Years, by Kharis Templeman, Yun-han Chu, and Larry Diamond
- The 2012 Elections, by Shelley Rigger
- The DPP in Opposition, by Austin Horng-en Wang
- The KMT in Power, by Nathan F. Batto
- The Party System Before and After the 2016 Elections, by Kharis Templeman
- The Challenges of Governance, by Yun-han Chu and Yu-tzung Chang
- Legislative Politics, by Isaac Shih-hao Huang and Shing-yuan Sheng
- Watchdog Institutions, by Christian Göbel
- Managing the Economy, by Pei-shan Lee
- Assessing Support for Democracy, by Yu-tzung Chang and Yun-han Chu
- Trends in Public Opinion, by Ching-hsin Yu
- The Impact of Social Movements, by Dafydd Fell
- Who are the Protestors? Why Are They Protesting? by Min-hua Huang and Mark Weatherall
- Social Media and Cyber-Mobilization, by Eric Yu and Jia-hsin Yu
- Cross-Strait Relations, by Szu-yin Ho
- In the Shadow of Great-Power Rivalry, by Dean P. Chen
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One of the major figures in East Asian Studies at Stanford, Ramon H. Myers, died this month after a long illness. He was 86.
Myers was the former curator of the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution, where he played a central role in acquiring new materials on Taiwan's post-war history, including a vast collection of documents from the KMT party archive in Taipei as well as the Chiang Kai-shek diaries.
He also wrote several influential books and articles on Taiwan. The best-known in Taiwan studies is probably The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, 2nd ed. 2002), with Linda Chao, but he also co-authored a history of the 2-28 Incident in 1947 and co-edited a widely-read volume on the Japanese pre-war colonial empire, among others.
For those interested in a personal history of sorts, I recommend this interview conducted by Hsiao-ting Lin and Da-chi Liao in 2007, before he retired as curator. It gives a fascinating view into the practical challenges and opportunities and the intellectual cross-currents faced by his generation of East Asia scholars. I've excerpted a particularly interesting bit below:
Myers was the former curator of the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution, where he played a central role in acquiring new materials on Taiwan's post-war history, including a vast collection of documents from the KMT party archive in Taipei as well as the Chiang Kai-shek diaries.
He also wrote several influential books and articles on Taiwan. The best-known in Taiwan studies is probably The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, 2nd ed. 2002), with Linda Chao, but he also co-authored a history of the 2-28 Incident in 1947 and co-edited a widely-read volume on the Japanese pre-war colonial empire, among others.
For those interested in a personal history of sorts, I recommend this interview conducted by Hsiao-ting Lin and Da-chi Liao in 2007, before he retired as curator. It gives a fascinating view into the practical challenges and opportunities and the intellectual cross-currents faced by his generation of East Asia scholars. I've excerpted a particularly interesting bit below:
...
Why did Hoover want to recruit you?
Good question! The curator was a Chinese gentleman called Ma (馬). His predecessor Eugene Wu had been in charge of the Yenching Library at Harvard. Before him was Mary Wright. I also took the name Ma (馬). The first Ma was only at Hoover for 6 years, but he had a very serious problem with women. Several of them went to Director Glenn Campbell and complained. Campbell offered Ma the choice of resigning or being fired. Campbell wanted a curator who was also a scholar and a fundraiser. I did not know about all these internal developments until I had been here 2 years. I applied to be a senior fellow, and the committee concurred. Finally, the President of Stanford University agreed.
Did you have connections with Taiwan then?
No. That came 2 years later. Wei Yong (魏鏞) had been a National Fellow at Hoover in 1974. But he left to take up a job in Chiang Ching-kuo’s cabinet. Campbell and Wei Yong and also Yuan Li Wu (吳元黎) helped me to visit Taiwan. Richard Starr, who was Campbell’s deputy, suggested I take a couple of trips to Taiwan. Based on these travels, I developed a friendship with many in the KMT.
With Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)?
I met him much earlier, when I went to Taiwan in 1959. He was at the Nong Fu Hui (農復會) and Taida’s Agricultural Economics Department (台大農經系). We were once at conferences together, and admired one another’s agricultural economic work, which was the focus of our dialogue. When I went back on short 2-3 week trips to meet Taiwanese people, I developed an interest in the KMT, and began to learn about Taiwan; one thing led to another. I wrote a book on the February 28 Incident (二二八事件) with two other Chinese scholars. Next visit was to go to the Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung (中山大學) in 1982-83.
How did you know Qin Xiaoyi (秦孝儀)?
That was also accidental. When Qin made his first visit to the US in 1984, he was invited to the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Chicago. He wanted to come to Hoover or Stanford to get some publicity. I learned of his desire to visit Hoover before going to Chicago. So I arranged for Qin to come here. He gave a talk in the reading room of the East Asian Library. We had a huge audience for him to address. He got a lot of publicity in the local newspaper about being invited to speak here. He was very grateful and so he and Lee Huan (李煥) arranged for Edna (my wife) and me to go to the Sun Yat-sen University (中山大學). Qin used his connection with Hoover to gain support from among the Chinese community. This worked out very well for him and for us. Then when I went out to Sun Yat-sen University, my ties with the KMT became closer. I would say the Qin Xiaoyi’s trip in 1984 was very important.
Didn’t you know him before that?
I only had met him when he came to Hoover, and also two years later when Edna and I visited Kaohsiung. I also met Kuo Ta-chun (郭岱君), who came here on a grant from Institute of International Relations, National Cheng-chi University (政大國關中心). She came to Hoover and worked with me on a long article, which became a book on how to interpret Communist China. We published it at the Hoover Press, and many people used it. In the early 1980s, Western scholars were trying to re-evaluate the achievements of Chinese Communism, particularly Mao Zedong. Our book was a comparison of how good the work of Taiwanese China-watchers compared with that of Europeans and America’s. I think we omitted the Japanese. We pointed out, quite credibly but controversially, that the Taiwanese Chinese-watchers were the best: they had met and were with Communist revolutionaries when they were doing underground spying. They had inside documents from intelligence sources far much better than we had. They could make powerful arguments about CCP rule of China and interpret change. Where they did best was interpreting how China was having a series of problems with the Communist system which proved that its problems were serious.
...
Why did Hoover want to recruit you?
Good question! The curator was a Chinese gentleman called Ma (馬). His predecessor Eugene Wu had been in charge of the Yenching Library at Harvard. Before him was Mary Wright. I also took the name Ma (馬). The first Ma was only at Hoover for 6 years, but he had a very serious problem with women. Several of them went to Director Glenn Campbell and complained. Campbell offered Ma the choice of resigning or being fired. Campbell wanted a curator who was also a scholar and a fundraiser. I did not know about all these internal developments until I had been here 2 years. I applied to be a senior fellow, and the committee concurred. Finally, the President of Stanford University agreed.
Did you have connections with Taiwan then?
No. That came 2 years later. Wei Yong (魏鏞) had been a National Fellow at Hoover in 1974. But he left to take up a job in Chiang Ching-kuo’s cabinet. Campbell and Wei Yong and also Yuan Li Wu (吳元黎) helped me to visit Taiwan. Richard Starr, who was Campbell’s deputy, suggested I take a couple of trips to Taiwan. Based on these travels, I developed a friendship with many in the KMT.
With Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)?
I met him much earlier, when I went to Taiwan in 1959. He was at the Nong Fu Hui (農復會) and Taida’s Agricultural Economics Department (台大農經系). We were once at conferences together, and admired one another’s agricultural economic work, which was the focus of our dialogue. When I went back on short 2-3 week trips to meet Taiwanese people, I developed an interest in the KMT, and began to learn about Taiwan; one thing led to another. I wrote a book on the February 28 Incident (二二八事件) with two other Chinese scholars. Next visit was to go to the Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung (中山大學) in 1982-83.
How did you know Qin Xiaoyi (秦孝儀)?
That was also accidental. When Qin made his first visit to the US in 1984, he was invited to the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Chicago. He wanted to come to Hoover or Stanford to get some publicity. I learned of his desire to visit Hoover before going to Chicago. So I arranged for Qin to come here. He gave a talk in the reading room of the East Asian Library. We had a huge audience for him to address. He got a lot of publicity in the local newspaper about being invited to speak here. He was very grateful and so he and Lee Huan (李煥) arranged for Edna (my wife) and me to go to the Sun Yat-sen University (中山大學). Qin used his connection with Hoover to gain support from among the Chinese community. This worked out very well for him and for us. Then when I went out to Sun Yat-sen University, my ties with the KMT became closer. I would say the Qin Xiaoyi’s trip in 1984 was very important.
Didn’t you know him before that?
I only had met him when he came to Hoover, and also two years later when Edna and I visited Kaohsiung. I also met Kuo Ta-chun (郭岱君), who came here on a grant from Institute of International Relations, National Cheng-chi University (政大國關中心). She came to Hoover and worked with me on a long article, which became a book on how to interpret Communist China. We published it at the Hoover Press, and many people used it. In the early 1980s, Western scholars were trying to re-evaluate the achievements of Chinese Communism, particularly Mao Zedong. Our book was a comparison of how good the work of Taiwanese China-watchers compared with that of Europeans and America’s. I think we omitted the Japanese. We pointed out, quite credibly but controversially, that the Taiwanese Chinese-watchers were the best: they had met and were with Communist revolutionaries when they were doing underground spying. They had inside documents from intelligence sources far much better than we had. They could make powerful arguments about CCP rule of China and interpret change. Where they did best was interpreting how China was having a series of problems with the Communist system which proved that its problems were serious.
...