Click here for FAPA's Press Release (07/18/05)

Click here for AMTRAK's Response to FAPA (08/16/05)

July 18, 2005

Mr. David L. Gunn                                                                              
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Railroad Passenger Corporation
60 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Dear Mr. Gunn:

I write to you today to express my serious concern with Amtrak's online billing address form, which erroneously lists Taiwan as a province of China. This issue has caused strong feelings on the part of our fellow Taiwanese Americans. I therefore strongly urge you to correct this grave error by revising your listing of the country of Taiwan to
simply: "Taiwan" and strike any reference to China.

It is incontestable reality that Taiwan is not a part of China. All this, despite China's political claims to the contrary. I was informed however that Amtrak takes no position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan and simply lists all countries around the world according to ISO 3166-1 provided by the International Organization for Standardization.
Even so, the ISO sources are taken from the UN "Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use," which does not even list Taiwan as a province of China. Therefore, due to the lack of valid reference to Taiwan as a province of China in the ISO, Amtrak, as a federal-funded corporation, should adhere to U.S. State Department guidelines instead.

In 1996, the U.S. State Department released an unclassified memorandum providing guidelines on United States relations with Taiwan. The memorandum states that, since the US has no diplomatic relations with the ROC, US officials need to refer to Taiwan as "Taiwan." William J. Burns, Executive Secretary of the State Department at the time also
wrote in the memo that, terminology used by all state departments and agencies should be "[c]onsistent with the unofficial nature of U.S.-Taiwan ties. We refer to Taiwan simply as Taiwan."

Finally, we would like to reiterate that the US Postal Service, US State Department, and other state agencies all refer to Taiwan simply as "Taiwan." Thus, Amtrak, a corporation created by Congress that relies on federal aid to survive, should correct its terminology in
reference to Taiwan as well.

I therefore respectfully request that Amtrak adopt the State Department guidelines consistent with U.S. national policies and correct this factual error.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

                            Cordially yours,
                       
                            Dr. Ming-chi Wu, Ph.D., President,
                            Formosan Association for Public Affairs

Cc: David M. Laney, Chairman, Amtrak Board of Directors