> What about Carter's Taiwan Relations Act? Or was that not really implemented by Reagan?
It was enacted by the "China Lobby" [0] in Congress, and Carter had no choice but to ratify it due to his crumbling popularity during his reelection campaign.
Before Israel developed staunch bipartisan support in Congress in the 1990s, the most powerful foreign lobby was the ROC's due to Chiang Kai Shek's wife Soong Mei Ling and her family - they were all products of the New England boarding school-to-Ivy League pipeline and her brother T.V. Soong was one of the largest shareholders in General Motors and DuPont and was one of the richest people in the world from the 1940s-60s [1] and was personal friends with the future Senator (and Republican presidential candidate) Barry Goldwater back when T.V. Soong helped bankroll the "Hump" during WW2 [8] (I recommend reading "The Soong Dynasty" by Seagrave to learn more).
> And how did Taiwan remain independent for 20 years from Nixon to Clinton? I assumed it had to be our support
It was partially because of the China Lobby, the PLA's de facto loss of institutional capacity due to the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent purge due to it's failure in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War [2], military pressure from India [3], Vietnam [4], North Korea [5], and the Soviet Union [6] making the PRC feel encircled, and Taiwanese attempts at economic diplomacy in then poverty stricken PRC that needed foreign capital to rebuild [9][10].
> I doubt Europeans were involved so far afield
They supported PLA modernization [7].
> probably very focused north, and wouldn't want to antagonize the Communists
The South Korean military junta in the 1980s was pro-America and aligned with the US policy to mend ties with China.
> Japan seems implausible for historical reasons
Japan aligned with US policy at the time and began mending ties with China in the early 1980s which lead to a massive counter-reaction that became the seeds of Nippon Kaigi (the nationalist movement that every Japanese PM has been a member of since the late 1990s)
It was enacted by the "China Lobby" [0] in Congress, and Carter had no choice but to ratify it due to his crumbling popularity during his reelection campaign.
Before Israel developed staunch bipartisan support in Congress in the 1990s, the most powerful foreign lobby was the ROC's due to Chiang Kai Shek's wife Soong Mei Ling and her family - they were all products of the New England boarding school-to-Ivy League pipeline and her brother T.V. Soong was one of the largest shareholders in General Motors and DuPont and was one of the richest people in the world from the 1940s-60s [1] and was personal friends with the future Senator (and Republican presidential candidate) Barry Goldwater back when T.V. Soong helped bankroll the "Hump" during WW2 [8] (I recommend reading "The Soong Dynasty" by Seagrave to learn more).
> And how did Taiwan remain independent for 20 years from Nixon to Clinton? I assumed it had to be our support
It was partially because of the China Lobby, the PLA's de facto loss of institutional capacity due to the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent purge due to it's failure in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War [2], military pressure from India [3], Vietnam [4], North Korea [5], and the Soviet Union [6] making the PRC feel encircled, and Taiwanese attempts at economic diplomacy in then poverty stricken PRC that needed foreign capital to rebuild [9][10].
> I doubt Europeans were involved so far afield
They supported PLA modernization [7].
> probably very focused north, and wouldn't want to antagonize the Communists
The South Korean military junta in the 1980s was pro-America and aligned with the US policy to mend ties with China.
> Japan seems implausible for historical reasons
Japan aligned with US policy at the time and began mending ties with China in the early 1980s which lead to a massive counter-reaction that became the seeds of Nippon Kaigi (the nationalist movement that every Japanese PM has been a member of since the late 1990s)
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_lobby_in_the_United_Stat...
[1] - https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/mill-1-timeli...
[2] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10670564.2019.15...
[3] - https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/08/world/india-and-china-cit...
[4] - https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/world/peking-hanoi-intere...
[5] - https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/05/world/china-turns-attenti...
[6] - https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/21/world/soviet-china-talks-...
[7] - https://www.nytimes.com/1978/04/14/archives/china-looking-to...
[8] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hump
[9] - https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/20/world/first-china-taiwan-...
[10] - https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/13/world/taiwan-to-allow-mor...