The Taiwan Relations Act: The Past and the Future

The Wilson Center’s Asia Program is pleased to launch a new series marking the 35th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, and offering recommendations designed to ensure that the TRA remains relevant to the policy challenges of the 21st century.

In the fourth in this series of policy briefs, Professor Xiaobo Hu counsels that the United States should give priority to the promotion of peaceful relations across the Taiwan Strait, and to the maintenance of stable and constructive ties with both Taipei and Beijing. Toward those ends, Hu argues, Washington should undertake a comprehensive review of the TRA and the policy of “strategic ambiguity” that has characterized U.S. Taiwan Strait policy for many years.