04-03 Taiwan

He was a former native-born Taiwan Congressman, a small business leader, someone fluent in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and English, and a friend for over 25 years.
And to my surprise, when we met in 1975, he said that he was a Christian and was always invited to prayer-breakfast services at the White House, when he went to Washington. His name was John Liu.
Taiwan, from 1895 to the end of WW2, was part of the Empire of Japan, and John was required to learn Japanese in school. And picked out as a future leader, he was sent to study economics at the University of Tokyo in Japan.
My history lessons on Taiwan, which used to be called Formosa, all came from John. He and I with leaders from Japan, the US, and South Korea created the International Symposium on Small Business.
With John’s fluency in Japanese, he made it possible for all of us to understand the culture of Japan. This was important because Japan had its own way of doing things and led the world in promoting the development of small business.
We all agreed to bring Symposiums to our nation at least twice, and we brought the world to Taiwan in 1985 and 1997.
I remember asking John, what was the historical Japanese interest in Taiwan, outside of defense. He said, “they wanted our sugar cane”.
I remember the first international gathering in 1985 because Taiwan was celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the death of Chiang Kai-shek, who was the leader of the Kuomintang Political Party in China, until he was ousted by Mao Zedong during the China civil war from 1945-1949.
And up until 1979, Chiang Kai-shek was recognized as the leader of China even though he was established in Taiwan. They called themselves the Republic of China and held the China seat on the UN Security Council.
If you ever want to study the term “confusion”, try to understand the politics and economics of Taiwan. I remember when I was first visiting Taiwan in 1985, that representatives from mainland China still had seats in the Taiwan Congress. Try to figure that one out.
Officially, China considers Taiwan a break-away province of China. And on Taiwan itself, there is half the population dedicated to future legal independence and another half promoting future reunification.
John Liu joined Chiang Kai-shek’s party in the 1950s and was an elected member to the Taiwanese Congress. He was a promoter of closer economic and political ties with China.
The extent to which Taiwan and China did business together over the years is not publicized, but today something like 90,000 Taiwan businesses have invested in mainland China. And there are over 900 direct flights each week that facilitate both business and tourism.
What protects Taiwan is an unofficial relationship with the US that keeps Taiwan well protected with US-made defensive military weapons.
But it would be my judgement call that as China becomes stronger and more in control of the South China sea, that the US will lose all interest in being a Taiwan protector and that Taiwan will become a province of China with special rights like Hong Kong.