Abstract
The Taiwan Relations Act’ hardly had an auspicious beginning. The then Deputy Secretary of State was pelted with eggs, tomatoes, and stones when he traveled to Taiwan in December of 1978 to explain the United States (U.S.) plan for continuing “unofficial” relations with Taiwan in the aftermath of recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). When the Carter administration sent its draft bill on Taiwan relations to the Congress, Senator Frank Church, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, characterized the plan as “woefully inadequate,” and that was one of the milder congressional reactions. After the Act was passed, the PRC minced no words in asserting that it “betrays the principles that have brought about the normalization of relations between China and the United States.”