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The Quotable Bill Rusher Part 2: From His Books

Special Counsel (1968) “… a steady diet of political infighting tends to coarsen, and ultimately to cheapen, most participants. They approach politics as reasonably honorable citizens, and by imperceptible degrees it sucks them into its vortex. The plainly right...

The Quotable Bill Rusher

from If Not Us, Who? William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement “Politicians are the grease on which society’s wheels turn. And they can’t be better, most of the time, than a sort of low competence and honor.”—from an interview for Rusher’s...

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(June 23, 2023—revised December 21, 2023) William Rusher, a dynamic force on the American right who passed away in 2011 after decades as comrade and mentor to many conservatives, was born a full century ago on July 19, 1923. His centenary comes at a hard time for...

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The Quotable Bill Rusher Part 2: From His Books

Special Counsel (1968) “… a steady diet of political infighting tends to coarsen, and ultimately to cheapen, most participants. They approach politics as reasonably honorable citizens, and by imperceptible degrees it sucks them into its vortex. The plainly right...

The Quotable Bill Rusher

from If Not Us, Who? William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement “Politicians are the grease on which society’s wheels turn. And they can’t be better, most of the time, than a sort of low competence and honor.”—from an interview for Rusher’s...

“If Not Us, Who?”

If Not Us, Who? takes you on a journey into the life of William Rusher, a key player in shaping the modern conservative movement. Known for his long stint as the publisher of National Review, Rusher wasn't just a publisher—he was a crucial strategist and thinker in...

The voters of Taiwan have just handed their friends and well-wishers in the United States a gratifying victory in their nation’s parliamentary elections. It hasn’t received much notice in the press here, but it deserves to be noted for the triumph it is.

Taiwan, which has been an independent nation since the communists seized China during World War II, was dominated from its inception in 1945 until 2000 by the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang. The Nationalists have never made any secret that their ambition is to reunite the island with mainland China when the latter has been purged of communism and is a free country again. Their chief opponent is the Democratic Progressive Party, which elected Chen Shui-bian as president of Taiwan in 2000 and has since tended increasingly to favor Taiwan’s independence — not only from Communist China, but from any successor government of China, however free.

This tendency has naturally infuriated Beijing, which, of course, prefers the Nationalists’ policy of eventual reunion with the mainland, albeit a non-Communist mainland. More important, it squarely conflicts with American policy, which agrees with the Nationalists in favoring Taiwan’s ultimate reunion with the mainland after the communists there have been overthrown. To Washington, President Chen’s policy of cautiously increasing Taiwan’s separation from China simply aggravates Beijing to no purpose, since Taiwan is for all practical purposes entirely independent of the People’s Republic of China and has our assurances that we will make sure, by military means if necessary, that it remains so.

Nevertheless, President Chen, seeking to benefit politically by encouraging separatist tendencies in Taiwan, has pursued a policy of increasing the political distance between Taipei and Beijing. At the moment, for example, he is sponsoring a referendum, to be held in conjunction with the island’s forthcoming presidential election on March 22, that would make it national policy to seek to join the United Nations under the name “Taiwan” rather than its formal name, which is “the Republic of China.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described this as a “provocative policy,” which it surely is.

The Kuomintang, of course, bitterly opposes Chen’s proposal. And that is why it is extremely noteworthy that, in the nationwide parliamentary elections just held, the voters of Taiwan gave a landslide victory to the Kuomintang, handing it nearly three-quarters of the seats in Parliament.

This drubbing foreshadows disaster for Chen’s DPP in the elections of March 22, which will vote both on Chen’s successor as president and on the referendum. Recognizing the disaster that has already occurred as well as the one to come, Chen (whose second and final term as president is expiring) has resigned as party chairman to take responsibility for the defeat. The DPP’s candidate to succeed him, Frank Hsieh, is expected to play down the issue. But if the Kuomintang defeats Hsieh and the referendum, and elects its candidate, Ma Ying-jeou, as Taiwan’s new president, the United States will have a loyal and dependable friend in that key position.

The biggest winners, however, will be the people of Taiwan. They will continue to enjoy their de facto independence and the island’s famous prosperity, without unnecessarily insulting their large and dangerous neighbor across the Strait of Formosa. And they will continue to have an indispensable friend and ally in the United States of America.

*****

This article originally appeared on Townhall.com on Jan 24, 2008

Author

  • William Rusher

    William A. Rusher, a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute, was the publisher of National Review magazine from 1957 to 1988. A prominent conservative spokesman, Rusher gained national recognition over forty years as a television and radio personality. Since 1973, his syndicated column "The Conservative Advocate" has appeared in newspapers across the U.S. He is also a prolific author and lecturer, with five books and numerous articles. His notable works include "The Making of the New Majority Party" and "The Rise of the Right." An influential political activist, Rusher was instrumental in the 1961 draft of Barry Goldwater for the 1964 Republican nomination, which reshaped the Republican Party and continued under Ronald Reagan. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, served in the Air Force during World War II, and worked at a major Wall Street law firm. He also served as associate counsel to the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee before joining National Review. In 1989, Rusher became a Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute, continuing to write and advise from his home in San Francisco. He remains active on various boards, including the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, National Review Inc., and the Media Research Center.

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