Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, one of the most respected US academics specializing in Taiwan studies, has died in Washington following a long battle against cancer.
Her 2009 book, Strait Talk: US-Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China, examined the political and security issues in the triangular relationship.
Tucker’s books, speeches and private advice influenced US policy toward China and Taiwan over the past two decades.
“She made a great contribution to understanding Taiwan’s role in American diplomacy and before that in understanding American diplomacy in a historical context,” former American Institute in Taiwan director Douglas Paal said.
“On top of that, she was a really caring professor who helped her students develop careers,” he said.
A professor of history at Georgetown University and at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Tucker specialized in US relations with China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
“She was a first-rate historian of Sino-American relations, a passionate teacher and a dedicated public servant,” School of Foreign Service dean Carol Lancaster said.
In the middle of the 1980s, Tucker served in the Office of Chinese Affairs at the US Department of State and at the US embassy in Bejing.
Tucker was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She edited the 2005 book Dangerous Straits about contemporary problems in US-Taiwan-China relations and was the author of Uncertain Friendships: Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US, 1945-1992, which won the 1996 Bernath Book Prize.
The Wilson Center issued a statement saying that Tucker — a Wilson Center scholar — was one of “the most respected historians of her generation.”
She is survived by her husband, Warren Cohen, who is also a Wilson Center senior scholar.
“Few in Washington compared to her in terms of incisive and straightforward analysis of US relations with both Taiwan and China,” said Gerrit van der Wees, a senior political adviser at the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
Tucker was “unsparing” in her criticism of former US president Richard Nixon and former US national security adviser Henry Kissinger for giving “Beijing what it wanted in order to make a deal” over Taiwan, Van der Wees said.
Recently, she expressed strong reservations about the willingness of China’s new leaders to move in what she considered the “right” direction.
“A more realistic appraisal of China’s leaders reveals a group of conservative and cautious men highly unlikely to take bold steps toward structural reform,” she wrote.
“Their priority is to keep themselves in power,” Tucker said.
“Her hard-nosed realism and the charm with which she was able to present her arguments will be dearly missed,” Van der Wees said.
“She was a great historian and a lady who stood by the basic principles for which the US stands,” he said.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday established a friendship group with their counterparts in Ukraine to promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. A ceremony in Taipei for the Taiwan-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Association, initiated by DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), was attended by lawmakers and officials, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) and European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan Director Lutz Gullner. The increasingly dire situation in Ukraine is a global concern, and Taiwan cannot turn its back when the latter is in need of help, as the two countries share many common values and interests,
RSS