Chen runs afoul of U.S. pressing for independence
2006/5/14
By Peter Enav TAIPEI, AP
Taiwan's leader shook the hand of U.S. first lady Laura Bush at a
ceremony this week in Costa Rica. Moments later, he approached her
again and chatted briefly as his aide snapped a commemorative
photo.
It's good that President Chen Shui-bian has a picture of the
meeting because it might be the closest he'll get to a member of
the American inner circle for quite some time.
Washington has been signaling its strong disapproval of Chen's
efforts to encourage separateness from China on this island of 23
million people, 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the China
coast.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. Since then China has
made it clear that any moves to formalize Taiwan's de facto
independence would be met by force.
Lately American patience with Chen has started to wear thin. The
trouble for the Taiwanese leader began on Feb. 27 when he scrapped
a government body responsible for facilitating the eventual
unification with the mainland.
The move provoked an angry reaction in Beijing, which saw it as
part of Chen's deliberate drift toward independence. It also
alarmed Washington, where the prospect of being dragged into a war
across the volatile Taiwan Strait is viewed as a major security
nightmare.
Testifying before the House International Affairs Committee on
Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick made it
clear that Chen's decision on the unification body was endangering
American lives.
"We want to be supportive of Taiwan, while we're not encouraging
those that try to move toward independence," he said. "Independence
means war. And that means American soldiers, sailors, airmen and
marines."
Another apparent sign of Washington's annoyance was its refusal to
allow the Taiwanese president a stop in a key U.S. city as he
traveled to Latin America, where he met Mrs. Bush. Chen has been
allowed to make such stops before, and his inability to get
permission this time was viewed as a major snub in Taiwan.
Washington decided to let Chen a short transit stop in Alaska, but
the Taiwanese leader declined.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reacted with icy
indifference to Chen's decision. "I understand ... that he has
chosen not to travel," McCormack said, conspicuously failing to
mention Chen by name. "That's his decision."
Philip Yang of Taipei's National Taiwan University says a key
question now is whether Chen has already burned his bridges with
the United States, or whether he can somehow redeem himself during
his final two years in office.
"It's still very hard to tell," he said. "But definitely the bridge
for him is narrow."
Yang believes that Chen's problems are largely of his own making,
the result of his constant attempts to push the envelope on
Taiwanese independence, instead of understanding his dependence on
American goodwill.
"The Bush administration may have started as the most pro-Taiwanese
administration ever," he said. "But it's certainly not that way
now."
Chen and his government have naturally tried to put the best face
on their relations with Washington, blaming intrusive Chinese
pressure for the American posture in limiting Chen to a transit
stop in relatively isolated Anchorage.
But no less a light than Zoellick disagreed with them, suggesting
that Chen had broken a promise to the U.S. in scrapping the
mainland unification body.
He also denied that Chinese pressure had in any way influenced the
American decisions on Chen's itinerary.
"We make our own decisions," he said in his House testimony. "We
don't clear them with China. We don't negotiate them with
China."
"It'll be extremely challenging for relations between Taipei and
Washington to improve" during the remaining two years of Chen's
presidency, said Lin Chong-Pin, president of the Foundation on
International and Cross Strait Studies think-tank.
In an apparent slight, the United States offered to let Chen
transit in remote Alaska or Hawaii this month instead of New York
while on his way home from Latin America. Chen rejected the offer
and was hailed a hero by some for standing up to Washington.
While Chen put on a brave face and tried to assure the public that
the row with the United States would not impact bilateral
relations, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick appeared
to harden parameters for ties.
Zoellick told a U.S. congressional hearing last week that Taiwan
will "keep hitting into a wall" if it continues to test the "one
China" policy under which Washington switched diplomatic
recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
Zoellick also warned that Taiwan independence meant war with China
risking the lives of American soldiers as he defended the
administration against criticism by U.S. lawmakers for treating
Chen is a "disgraceful" way.
"Washington's displeasure has been mainly targeted at Chen
Shui-bian," said Lin, a one-time deputy defence minister and
formerly one of Taiwan's top China policy makers.
Some saw the candid warning from Zoellick as a pre-emptive attempt
to stop Chen from crossing China's red line -- formalizing Taiwan's
de facto independence when amending the constitution in the run-up
to the 2008 elections.
"The United States is worried Taiwan will move towards independence
when it amends its constitution," said Lin, the political
scientist.
Lin speculated that the White House appearance of Chinese President
Hu Jintao last month may have prompted the United States to deny
President Chen a stop in New York to avoid hurting U.S.-China
ties.
Chen's woes began, analysts say, when he ignored U.S. warnings and
held a landmark referendum alongside presidential elections in
2004. China's parliament passed the Anti-Secession Law the next
year mandating armed conflict in one of Asia's most dangerous
flashpoints.
Ignoring U.S. admonitions again, Chen scrapped a dormant but
symbolic body and guidelines on eventual unification with China in
February in what Lin, the former official, described as "the last
straw that broke the camel's back."
