Search

The Taiwan Lobby in the United States comprises 5 different components. There is Taiwan's unofficial embassy, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO); the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce of North America (TCCNA); World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI); the Formosan Association for Political Activity (FAPA); and there is the Kuomintang (KMT), which represented the Republic of China (ROC) from 1949 to 2001. TCCNA and FAPA have opposed the KMT. Each organization has used a different lobbying technique to achieve influence. Since Taiwan does not have an official embassy, and hence cannot rely on official interaction with the executive branch, the various lobbies are forced to seek influence over Congress, which is more porous and diverse. The KMT relied on the old "China Lobby", which comprised missionaries, businessmen, military leaders, and members of Congress, especially Republicans. In opposing the KMT, FAPA sought to influence Democratic members of Congress during the 1980s. FAPA succeeded in persuading Congress to convince the KMT to end 40 years of martial law on Taiwan. Over the subsequent 20 years of political liberalization on Taiwam, the different Taiwanese organizations have collectively focused on K Street lobbies as a mechanism to influence Congress, with the Taiwan government paying such lobbies as Cassidy & Associates. Does this strategy make a difference on U.S. foreign policy toward Taiwan? The Taiwan Lobby is second in influence only to AIPAC, and the lobbying firms it hires help generate dozens of congressional bills, such as the most recent call for Taiwan to be admitted to the UN. Yet, the executive branch has dominance in foreign policy, and has not changed its policy toward Taiwan since 1982, thus bills often fail. The Taiwan Lobby has tried to shift the locus of decision-making power from the executive branch to the legislative branch. Has this strategy been successful? If so, what is the extent of this success and how exactly is it achieved? In particular, since FAPA is the most active organization, what are the components of its operation? One possible component is the transnational communal politics practiced by Formosan nationalists and expressed through FAPA. This component is potentially valuable under a three-level framework that entails states, domestic politics, and transnational actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pressure groups have always had a significant impact on U.S. policy, both foreign and domestic. Diasporas constitute a new kind of pressure group with an exclusive focus on foreign and domestic policies that affect the home country. Famous examples include the Israeli lobby, the Armenian lobby, the Cuban Lobby, and the Taiwan lobby. Putnam's concept of the two-level game is useful for explaining the interaction between foreign policy and ethnic lobbies. The concept of social capital is useful for explaining the relative success and failures of different lobbies and getting their preferred policies accepted. Social capital includes bonding, bridging, and linkage social capital. Bonding social capital unites people within a group, bridging social capital unites different groups, and linkage social capital unites government officials with these groups. The Taiwan lobby and the Cuban lobby are analyzed using these concepts to explain their relative success in "capturing" U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba and Taiwan. The Cuba lobby employed the successful strategy of shifting policy from the executive branch to Congress, thereby making U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba more aligned with the interests of Cuban hard-liners, and more difficult to change. The Cuba lobby accomplished this by focusing on U.S. Senators and Representatives who had a large number of Cubans in their states or districts. In contrast, the Taiwan lobby focused on the executive branch, leaving U.S. foreign policy toward Taiwan beholden to the prevailing U.S. policies toward China. Consequently, the Taiwan lobby has not been able to change U.S. policy toward Taiwan since the official recognition of the People's Republic of China in 1978, and the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. In contrast, the Cuba lobby has pushed the U.S. government to change its policies toward Cuba by intensifying the trade embargo, despite the fact that the rationale for the embargo no longer exists. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]