Editing Taiwan Relations Act (section)

==Background==
At [[The Third Plenum]] in 1978, [[Deng Xiaoping]] became the [[paramount leader]] of the [[China|People's Republic of China]] (PRC), definitively ending [[Maoism|Maoist]] rule and beginning the [[Gaige Kaifang|reform era]] of Chinese history. During his speech at the plenum, he outlined a new [[Foreign relations of China#People.27s Republic of China|Chinese foreign policy]], whereby the [[Soviet Union]]—not the United States, as in the past—was identified as the main [[National security of the People's Republic of China|national security threat]] to China. During this time, China regarded itself as in a "[[united front]]" with the U.S., Japan, and western Europe against the Soviets.<ref name="Dittmer">{{cite book|title=Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society, and Security |editor1-first=Jianmin |editor1-last=Zhao |editor2-first=Bruce| editor2-last=Dickson|year=2001|publisher=Routledge|chapter=Reform and Chinese foreign policy|first=Lowell|last=Dittmer|pages=179}}</ref> and thus [[Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations|established relations with the United States]], China also supported American [[Operation Cyclone]] actions in [[Communist Afghanistan]] and leveled [[Sino-Vietnamese War|a military expedition]] against Vietnam, America's main antagonist in Southeast Asia. In exchange, the United States abrogated its [[Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty|mutual defense treaty]] (SAMDT) with the [[Taiwan|Republic of China]] (ROC).

The ROC government mobilized the [[China Lobby]] in the United States to lobby Congress for the swift passage of an American security guarantee for the island.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ling |first1=Huping |last2=Austin |first2=Allan W. |title=Asian American History and Culture |date=17 March 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-47645-0 |page=142 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Newsom |first1=David D. |title=The Public Dimension of Foreign Policy |date=1996 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-21024-1 |page=191 |language=en}}</ref> Taiwan could appeal to members of Congress on many fronts: [[anti-communist]] China sentiment, a shared wartime history with the ROC, [[Human rights in China|Beijing's human rights violations]] (despite [[White Terror (Taiwan)|committing violations of its own]]) and its [[Freedom of religion in China|curtailment of religious freedoms]].<ref name="Dittmer">{{cite book|title=Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society, and Security |editor1-first=Jianmin |editor1-last=Zhao |editor2-first=Bruce| editor2-last=Dickson|year=2001|publisher=Routledge|chapter=Reform and Chinese foreign policy|first=Lowell|last=Dittmer|pages=179}}</ref><ref>ROBERT GREEN, [http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=53214&ctNode=2177 Mixed Signals], [[Taiwan Today]], 07/01/2009</ref>

Senator [[Barry Goldwater]] and other members of the [[United States Congress]] challenged the right of President [[Jimmy Carter]] to cancel SAMDT unilaterally, which the US had signed with the ROC in December 1954 and was ratified by the [[U.S. Senate]] in February 1955. Goldwater and his co-filers of the [[US Supreme Court]] case ''[[Goldwater v. Carter]]'' argued that the President required Senate approval to take such an action of termination, under [[Article Two of the United States Constitution#Section 2: Presidential powers|Article II, Section II]] of the [[United States Constitution|U.S. Constitution]], and that by not doing so, President Carter had acted beyond the powers of his office. The case ultimately was dismissed as non-justiciable and left open the constitutional question regarding a president's authority to dismiss a treaty unilaterally.<ref name=ait>[https://www.ait.org.tw/en/sino-us-mutual-defense-treaty-1954.html China Mutual Defense (1954)], [[American Institute in Taiwan]]</ref>

The Act was passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by President Carter in 1979 after the breaking of relations between the US and the ROC. Congress rejected the [[U.S. State Department]]'s proposed draft and replaced it with language that has remained in effect since 1979. The TRA is intended to maintain commercial, cultural, and other relations through the unofficial relations in the form of a nonprofit corporation incorporated under the laws of the [[District of Columbia]], the [[American Institute in Taiwan]] (AIT), without official government representation or formal diplomatic relations.<ref name=ucsb>[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32177 April 10, 1979: Taiwan Relations Act Statement on Signing H.R. 2479 Into Law], [[UCSD]]</ref> The Act entered retroactively into force, effective January 1, 1979.