This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, April 13th, 2024.

I'm Caleb Brown.

This week marks 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, which spells out U.S. commitments to Taiwan, and as Taiwan faces

new and mounting pressures, especially from China, it's worth considering those commitments

in some detail. Heaters Eric Gomez comments in some detail.

Heaters Eric Gomez comments.

We've talked about this a few times now.

The United States has made certain promises to Taiwan with respect to its security.

And if I recall what our colleague Justin Logan has said in the past.

It sounds great when you say it out loud,

but if you look in detail at what's written on the paper

in terms of security, we're not really promising to do very much.

And this is strategic, we assume, but what has the United States pledged to do for Taiwan?

The Taiwan Relations Act, which just turned 45 years old,

is the legal instrument through which the United States has pledged itself vaguely to Taiwan.

And it's this complicated thing that isn't as clear-cut as say a security treaty like we have with Japan,

right, where it says if Japan is attacked we will come to their aid with military force.

The TRA is much more, the Taiwan Relations Act is much more loose about it.

It says we have an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, an interest in this not being solved by military force, and in order to uphold that interest we will sell weapons to Taiwan and we will also in the

event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan take very unspecified actions or deem it as a problem.

It's like a have Z's commitment, right?

It's like we care about this, we care about it enough to make it a part of US law,

...