ABSTRACT
How did Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation arise? The easy answer is, it is the success of “China’s ‘One-China policy’.” But the One-China policy of Taiwan’s former authoritarian government is also responsible for Taiwan’s current plight. Until Lee Teng-hui became president in 1988, Taiwan maintained a rigid “One-China policy” in which the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan was the only China. By the time of the flexibility of 1988, more than fifteen years had passed since China had “re-entered” the world with the Kissinger and Nixon visits, the entry of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the United Nations, and the establishment of diplomatic relations with most countries. Thus, Lee Teng-hui’s pragmatism came much too late to be internationally effective for the newly emerging nation of Taiwan. Today’s democratic Taiwan continues to suffer from the consequences of the stubborn obduracy of the prior rigidly dogmatic authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT, Nationalist Party) regime.
