With the victory of Mao Tse-tung and his Communist Party military forces on mainland China in 1949, the remnants of the government of America's former World War II ally, the Republic of China (ROC) led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, fled to the island of Taiwan off the south China coast. For the next thirty years, both regimes claimed legitimacy as the sole legal government of the Chinese people. In Beijing on October 1, 1949, a victorious Mao proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek established a temporary capital for his government in Taipei, Taiwan, declaring the ROC still to be the legitimate Chinese government-in-exile and vowing that one day he would "retake the mainland" and drive out communist forces. The United States initially appeared reluctant to support the ROC's claim of legitimacy, and there is evidence that President Harry Truman was prepared to abandon Chiang's government on Taiwan and deal with Mao's PRC regime. But that U.S. position quickly evaporated with North Korea's surprise invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. Within a week, President Truman ordered U.S. air, naval, and ground forces to go to South Korea's aid and ordered the U.S. 7 th fleet to prevent any attack on Taiwan, saying that "determination of the future status of Formosa [the island's designation as a Japanese colony] must await the restoration of security in the Pacific ..." U.S. support for the ROC was solidified when Chinese Communist forces entered the Korean War in support of North Korea in October-November 1950. As a result, in April 1951, the United States resumed direct military assistance to the ROC government on Taiwan, and in 1954 the United States and Chiang's government signed the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty, making the two governments allies once again. This remained the situation for three decades: Taiwan and China remained officially at war; the United States continued to support the ROC claim as the legitimate government of all China, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the PRC, and maintained a defense alliance with the ROC government on Taiwan. For much of this time, the ROC government continued to represent China in the United Nations and other international organizations. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty allowed U.S. forces to use Taiwan as a forward base against Sino-Soviet communism in Asia. But after President Nixon's diplomatic opening to Beijing in 1971-72 and the major pullback of U.S. forces in Asia under the guidelines of the "Nixon doctrine," U.S. officials began to view Beijing more as a strategic asset against the Soviet Union than as an adversary to be confronted in the Taiwan Strait. The Nixon overtures resulted in the so-called "Shanghai Communiqué" of 1972 (the first of three U.S.-China communiqués) which set the stage for the reversal of U.S. post-WWII China policy. Official U.S. recognition of PRC legitimacy did not come until 1979, after the Carter Administration made a surprise announcement on December 15, 1978, that the United States would sever official relations with the ROC government on Taiwan and recognize the PRC government in Beijing on January 1 of the new year. In the Joint Communiqué on Establishing Diplomatic Relations that announced the change, the United States acknowledged (an important distinction in future debate on the U.S. "one-China" policy) that both the PRC and ROC governments claimed there was only one China and that Taiwan was a province of it. As part of the process of recognizing the PRC government, U.S. officials also notified the ROC government (Taiwan) that the United States intended to terminate, effective January 1, 1980, its military obligations toward Taiwan under the 1954 U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty. In a unilateral statement released on December 16, 1978, the United States declared that it "continues to have an interest in the peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue and expects that the Taiwan issue will be settled peacefully by the Chinese themselves." In an important historical side-note, President Carter's unilateral decision to terminate the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty in accordance with the treaty's terms (which permitted either party to terminate it with one year's notice) resulted in a landmark lawsuit over congressional constitutional prerogatives that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The suit, brought by Senator Barry Goldwater, alleged that the Senate's constitutional role in approving treaties required President Carter to consult the Senate before ending a treaty. (The constitution is silent on how U.S. treaties can be terminated.) After decisions and reversals in Federal District Court, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1979 issued a ruling which among other things stated that the President did not have to seek congressional approval before ending the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty. Senator Goldwater appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on December 13, 1979, denied his appeal, leaving the appellate court's ruling standing. While the record shows that the 96 th Congress in 1979 clearly concurred with the strategic imperative of normalizing relations with the PRC, many Members were unhappy with what they saw as the Carter Administration's minimal proposals for continued dealings with the ROC government on Taiwan. In particular, some were concerned that the package of legislation the White House submitted to Congress to govern future unofficial relations with Taiwan—the "Taiwan Enabling Act"—did not go far enough in protecting either Taiwan's or U.S. interests. Congressional debate on the legislation in 1979 was extensive and complicated. The end result was passage of a much amended version of the Administration's proposal—the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA— P.L. 96-8 )—which remains the domestic legal authority for conducting unofficial U.S. relations with Taiwan today. Much of the TRA deals with the logistics of U.S.-Taiwan relations: the establishment of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) as the unofficial U.S. representative for diplomatic interactions with Taiwan, including details about its staffing, functions, and funding. Of particular relevance for long-term U.S. policy are Section 2 (b) and Section 3 of the TRA, dealing with U.S. strategic interests in and arms sales commitments to Taiwan; and Section 4, allowing for the continued application of existing U.S. laws and treaties with Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties. The dissolution of U.S. diplomatic relations with Taiwan placed Taiwan into a unique legal no-man's land that the TRA was designed to redress. One set of considerations involved how Taiwan—essentially rendered a legal "non-state" by the severing of relations—was to be treated under U.S. law after 1978. Many of these issues are addressed in Section 4 of the TRA, which specifies that in matters of U.S. law, Taiwan is to be treated in a manner consistent with the way that "foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities" are treated, irrespective of other provisions in U.S. law concerning the requirements of maintaining diplomatic relations. The TRA specifically includes in this treatment the maintenance of all treaties (agreements between sovereign states); the continuation of "the ownership of or other rights or interests in properties, tangible and intangible, and other things of value" owned by the governing authorities on Taiwan prior to December 31, 1978; immigration laws; and the capacity of Taiwan to sue and be sued in U.S. courts. In another key issue, the severing of diplomatic relations with Taiwan left both the Taiwan and U.S. governments with no practicable official way of managing programs, transactions, financial arrangements, consular services, or other relations with each other. Sections 6 through 9 of the TRA, then, established a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation separate from the U.S. government—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)—to handle those issues with Taiwan that would have been conducted by U.S. government authorities such as the State Department if diplomatic relations existed. The AIT is funded through an annual U.S. government appropriation and has offices in Taiwan (in Taipei and Kaohsiung) as well as in Washington, DC (headquartered in Arlington, Virginia). In providing for staffing for the AIT, Section 11 of the TRA states that U.S. government officers or employees may separate from the U.S. government in order to take a position with AIT. Upon completion of their service with AIT, such U.S. government employees are entitled to return to comparable positions in the U.S. government with no loss of "attendant rights, privileges, and benefits ... " The title of the head of the U.S. AIT is "Director." The TRA provided for a comparable "Taiwan Instrumentality" in Section 10, authorizing the President to extend similar privileges and immunities to Taiwan officers of this instrumentality as Taiwan extended to AIT officials. Originally established as the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, (or CCNAA), the Taiwan office in Washington, DC, has been known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative's Office (TECRO) since 1994. In addition, TECRO oversees twelve other offices throughout the United States, known as Taiwan Economic and Cultural Offices (TECO); these are in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Guam, Honolulu, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. The title of the head of TECRO is "Representative." AIT and TECRO officials operate on behalf of their governments in dealing with each other's governments.