Taiwan Relations Act - Background

Background

At The Third Plenum in 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC), definitively ending Maoist rule and beginning the reform era of Chinese history. During his speech at the plenum, he outlined a new foreign policy of China, whereby the Soviet Union - not the United States, as in the past - was identified as the main national security threat to China. During this time, China regarded itself as in a "united front" with the US, Japan, and western Europe against the Soviets. Accordingly, China established relations with the United States, supported American operations in Communist Afghanistan, and leveled a punitive expedition against Vietnam, America's main antagonist in Southeast Asia. In exchange, the United States abrogated its mutual defense treaty with the ROC (Taiwan). So as to maintain good relations with the United States, the PRC offered new, more generous proposals to the Taipei government for Chinese reunification, introducing the one country, two systems concept which would allow Taiwan near-complete autonomy. However, the ROC government hardened its position with the Three Noes Policy and mobilized its ethnic lobby in the United States to agitate Congress for the swift passage of an American security guarantee for the island.