Nixon, Chia-Kan & Kennedy on Taiwan and US-Taiwan Relations

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Mr. President, my special guest, how are you?

Good to see you again.

Mr. President, welcome to the... Mr. President, welcome to the... Mr. President, welcome to the... Mr. President, welcome to the...

Good.

Perfectly different from ours.

The system wasn't brought to see the connection of Chinese dead, also sent to the U.S. in the last six years.

So that's very hard.

It says, it says, the connection of the U.S. and the U.S. in the last six years.

That's the problem.

Well, let me say first, Mr. President, we very much appreciate your taking this long journey to honor President Truman.

And also, we appreciate the opportunity, even on a brief visit like this, to welcome you here.

I remember our meeting that we had over in the White House.

I have the most pleasant memories of my many visits to your country.

And of course, our association on a personal basis with the president.

I hope he's feeling better.

He's feeling better.

He's had a hard time at the moment.

He's had a hard time.

He's feeling much better.

Only the doctor advised that he shouldn't be taking any serious things.

What's the matter?

You have taken over most of the .

Also, .

Well, it's good that he has such good people to be observed around the situation.

I know you've got, you have some of these problems in terms of the, that's what we call it, the practical diplomatic ties.

But what I haven't particularly pleased is the economic side, in particular, being one of the wonders of the world.

That's it.

Is this because you work hard?

I have been very often bombarded with questions as to how we are meeting these challenges.

And my usual answer is, how to work.

And sometimes people say, if such an activity could continue, what would you do?

I say, how to work.

We have to work hard and work hard.

Aside from many other things, the most divisive part of the international relations is trade.

In 1972, our trade volume increased by 45% to 48% over the end of 1971.

And so it means that in 1971, our two-way trade was about

4,200 million U.S. dollars last year.

According to the Central Bank, it was about 5,900 billion, nearly 6 billion.

And you can say for customer clearance, actual handling of cargo is about 5,000 billion.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And we know that we can continue to work hard to not only be able to do the same thing as all of our friends, but we will forge our own future.

We have recently had an election of the national legislative body and also the provincial legislative body, so that more and more of the local people are coming into politics.

We want to have a younger generation coming up.

We have a very great emphasis on education.

We have some ideas.

We have a population of 50 million on the island of Taiwan.

More than 27%.

But we have also about human elements.

We think education is not something

superficial things, we have to create proper citizenship.

That's the reason why we have also this whole Renaissance movement, trying to revive the original Capricious virtues.

And we are also going very much into vocational education.

And very intelligent, very intelligent.

And .

The same thing very often.

You're a scientist, too.

My country is for exchange of views on science advancement and science education.

And we should be more sustainable and edified so that you see, we live in a world where we can help ourselves better to be a better person and find better things.

We are already enjoying water, we are already enjoying very much, you are in a poor place, but we are in a very good place.

Was anybody informed about the military situation?

And so far, because of aircraft, we have been doing it.

As you know, we had to do that in our name.

We hope we may break the deadline.

That's what the purpose of these talks actually is.

I cannot tell you whether they will succeed or not.

I didn't let the communists shoot her out.

Actually, they had agreed in principle before the election

And then after the election, they backed away.

That's why we had to resume our policy of paying for the bombing in honor.

And then they said, now that we've discussed this seriously again, we hope, again, that our principles are that we must have a ceasefire.

That we're trying to coerce our prisoners into that political setup that does not impose a coalition government that allows the people to determine the future of the country.

So now, if we can get that kind of a settlement, the war will be ended.

If we cannot get it, it's done.

So that's all we can tell you at this point.

It was a long, difficult war.

Our conversation with the ambassador probably told you what our conversations with the chiefs particularly are.

Article Clark does.

And we would like to get this finished, not only because of the cost of lives, but because the more the United States is bound down there, the less willing Congress is to engage in activities in other parts of the world.

It may be very important.

But we must end it the right way.

We can't, you know, we don't want to bug out.

If we bug out, the American position in Asia and in the world, I think, would be serious.

That's our business.

And so, whether we can continue to sell that to the American people, which is actually our current ambassador, she'd be an expert in other things.

And, you know, P.W.

Ron was a very young man.

He was a young, former vice president.

Mr. President, she will try everything possible to coordinate our policies and measures to your policies and measures.

In the meantime, of course, we hope you will also have in mind, you see, our situation.

I think she herself in military matters, I think,

gradually more and more, and then he has to be given to the air force and the navy and the ground forces, and then further in that direction.

We have to do everything to de-isolate, of course, and so we...

We're very appreciative of your help in such international organizations as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

I hope we can do better in the future.

So, and of course, there are many, many other organizations of even non-political nature, like the Olympic Games, like, you know, all these things.

We need this.

your help and your support.

On the other hand, we will work hard and I can assure the President that we will work hard in order to prove ourselves for the day of our health.

We will do everything possible.

We might also be thinking of the exploration and exploitation of resources such as oil.

I see.

All right.

Right now, we're looking at the exploratory stage, but eventually we have to open up.

I'm just saying, if you have oil, Saudi Arabia is the strongest nation in the world.

Saudi Arabia, man, they have enough oil to drink it.

They didn't do a lot.

They have the right to drink it.

You...

Very limited resources have done a magnificent job.

Of course, you might as well do this all year.

You have a very, very productive agriculture.

You're landing on programs.

Of course, an example of the world.

You've moved, you've taken Utah, Oregon, Iraq, small territory, countries 10 times the size.

But it's work.

It's work.

We are quite well in that respect.

We are having some of our favorite countries in this land reform.

But our land reform has been successful partly because of the land reform itself, but partly because of some complementary parallel measures, such as the organization of the Founders Association.

and agriculture extension work so that we increase the productivity of the land.

We are going into multi-cropping.

I recently read an article about multi-cropping.

They mentioned that my country, in certain places in Taiwan, we are growing two rice crops plus two cereal crops.

That's the index of multi-cropping goes to four.

We were growing four crops a year.

And then if a farmer sees land reform, part of the one aspect of land reform is distribution of land rights.

And that's very important for social equity.

But this farmer has to have greater production.

before he gets people interested in that.

And so what we are doing is a double-panel program.

On the one hand, redistribution of land to the children.

On the other hand, we help them to grow or to pay for it.

And that lays also the foundation for industrialization, with the increasing police and power of the general public, how industries are growing.

Right now, we are producing much more industry than agriculture.

see all these exports and all these increases in P&P and capitalization.

I think, although the final figures haven't been out yet, I think in 1932 the industrial growth will be more than 26%.

while the growth rate in agriculture may be around 5%.

So that would be very significant.

So my country will be gradually more and more industrialized.

Sure.

And in this presentation, we have to go into more and more sophisticated types of industry.

and then education and knowledge.

That will come first.

And your help will be very important.

At least a decision of course will come.

Thank you very much.

She's remarkable.

She narrows things at high intensity, high intelligence, strong.

And she's been, I guess, our inspiration.

But we will keep you close, much as your ambassador here, because we know well.

And we have a good man as our ambassador.

We will have to change him now, I guess, in our economy.

He's been around here.

Five or six.

He's been there two tours already.

I don't know.

I'm not going to let you bring me again without getting something.

Every time I go out there to see you, I'm overwhelmed with my friends there, the treasurers, the business managers.

I'm never in precipitation.

I'm a lot of things.

I walk out there.

Sometimes it's a little...

Nixon, Chia-Kan & Kennedy on Taiwan and US-Taiwan Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 5, 1973

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