Terminating the Taiwan Treaty: The constitutional separation of powers and foreign policy-making

On December 15, 1978, President James Earl Carter unilaterally terminated the 1954 Unites States-Republic of China Mutual Defense Treaty. This decision fundamentally altered Unites States foreign policy toward China and triggered a classic constitutional separation of powers controversy between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The legal question raised by President Carter's unilateral action was simply this: Does the president have the constitutional power to terminate a duly enacted United States treaty without congressional assent? Framing this narrow legal question were broader questions of constitutional law and process.; When is it constitutionally permissible for a president to act unilaterally in foreign affairs? When is congressional consultation required and what does the logic of that process imply? What happens to United States foreign policy when the mode of interaction between Congress and the President becomes highly confrontational? Is this development consistent with the Founding Fathers' conceptualization of the separation of powers? What effect does it have on the president's ability to achieve his immediate and long-term foreign policy objectives and on the American public's perception of the constitutional process as a whole? Finally, what role do the courts play in resolving interbranch disputes over the proper constitutional allocation of the foreign policy making power? These are the questions this dissertation addresses, with specific reference to the China normalization controversy.; Chapter 2 traces the history of executive-legislative collaboration on China policy since 1949 in an effort to establish that Congress was consistently involved in the process of formulating United States China policy during the postwar period. Chapter 3 examines why President Carter abandoned the United States counterconditions to normalization and why he did so without consulting Congress as required by the Dole-Stone Amendment to the International Security Assistance Act of 1978. Chapter 4 considers the role the courts have traditionally played in resolving disputes between Congress and the President over the foreign policy power. Chapter 5 documents the legislative history of the Taiwan Relations Act. In Chapter 6, a standard is developed to assess the constitutional propriety of unilateral foreign policy making by the president.