Tue, Feb 28, 2006 page8

• Letter: US should back off

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  President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) sweeping Lunar New Year declaration that he intended to scrap the National Unification Council and the Guidelines for National Unification, re-embark on his plan to rewrite Taiwan's constitution through referendum and switch to using the name Taiwan in future applications to join the UN plunged his administration into another round of clarification activities with Washington. The US State Department quickly voiced its displeasure publicly at least a couple of times.

  Washington's reactions to Chen's speech and the way those objections were phrased offered a few glimpses into the difficulties in diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan in the last few years.

  Perhaps nothing more vividly symbolizes this problem than the State Department's practice of lodging a complaint about statements "representing a change to status quo" without clarifying what the "status quo" itself was or how it could be discernibly shifted if nobody knows where it was positioned in the first place.

  Interestingly, at the time of China's enactment of its "Anti-Secession" Law last year, Washington's public reactions did not go beyond "it's unhelpful" diplomatic speak. Nothing close to complaints about "changing the status quo" were heard about the new law.

  If the law's mandated use of force under a broad range of conditions did not represent a fundamental shifting of the goalposts in the "status quo," it would be hard to imagine that anything Chen does short of physically crossing the line could constitute any significant impact on the "status quo."

  Following on the heels of the enactment of the law, former Chinese Nationalist Party chairman (KMT) Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) visited Beijing to seal the deal to formally link the pan-blue camp with Beijing. Consequently, a KMT-Chinese Communist Party coalition was born and commenced on the path to bring Taiwan into Beijing's fold. A full-court press ensued to lure the Taiwanese people into Beijing's embrace and to undermine Chen's government.

  Over the last year or so, the "status quo" must therefore have been pounded totally out of shape. Yet there would be no kind of warning from the US State Department about the "status quo" losing its original visage.

  But when Chen finally decided that the aftermath of the law had done enough damage to Taiwan's national security and that it was time to react, especially given KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) call for "unification" as the KMT's ultimate goal, the State Department hoisted up a cloud-shrouded "status quo."

  At most, what Chen is proposing can be construed as a delayed counter-balance to the law. And, international reality would make it doubtful that Chen can accomplish everything he has set out to do beyond scrapping a couple of dormant relics -- remnants of the old KMT administration and Taiwan's undemocratic past.

  It has been suggested that the State Department's role as the antagonist to Taiwan's democratization appears increasingly unbecoming of the world's premier democracy. That observation has not been allayed by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony at a recent US Congressional hearing when she underscored Taiwan's failure to cooperate in its own military modernization but only offered a vague "for American interests" defense for the US insistence on maintaining the "status quo" based on Washington's outdated "one China" policy.

  Reading between the lines, the implication seems clear: Taiwan's military modernization project is for the good of both countries, but "maintaining the status quo" is good for the US' short-term interests only.

  Rice's testimony should also be noted for offering little to dispel the notion that "changing the status quo" is but a code word for changes that Beijing abhors and that the appropriate metaphor for "maintaining the status quo" is a large arrow-headed sign pointing the Taiwanese people in the direction of unification.

  Given that Chen simply would not and could not cross the line, the US government should conclude that the State Department has adequately vented its objections and that whatever Chen is being faulted for does not warrant further straining of US-Taiwan diplomatic relations. Instead, Washington should view Chen's current efforts as part of the cure for Taiwan's waning desire to pull its own weight in the US-Japan-Taiwan defense alliance.

  Although Washington might consider it a convenient exercise to openly berate Chen, what has been overlooked is the fact that Taiwan is a completely open society where the State Department's knee-jerk parroting of Beijing's commands is greeted with derision by the Taiwanese public. Escalation of the State Department's current rhetoric therefore offers increasing potential for backfire.

  For instance, should US President George W. Bush carry out a public tongue-lashing of Chen in April in the presence of visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) or even prior to that, as a number of political analysts have predicted, and should Chen then refuse to compromise on what he deems right for Taiwan, Chen would emerge steadier and stronger than ever in the eyes of the majority of the Taiwanese people.

  Regardless, if there is a price to be paid, it will be short-lived since Chen's actions in no way adversely affect the long-term US-Taiwan strategic partnership. It is even conceivable that Chen's newfound sense of conviction and political courage will begin to repair his image within the Bush administration, specifically in the State Department, and restore at least some semblance of respect and even trust, which would bode well for a Taiwan-US relations as well as prospects for Taiwan's continuing democratization.

  Huang Jei-hsuan
  

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