Neo-conservatives in the Bush administration -- led by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- frequently dispatched representatives to Taiwan to encourage President Chen Shui-bian's (
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to former secretary of state Colin Powell, was quoted in the Congressional Quarterly article in the issue published on Friday.
Wilkerson said that the actions had the potential to generate a conflict -- possibly nuclear -- between the US and China.
He said that White House officials promoting independence were the same as those who engineered the war on Iraq, including Rumsfeld, former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former UN ambassador John Bolton, as well as former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) head Therese Shaheen.
Wilkerson alleged that the Department of Defense sent representatives to Taiwan almost every week and told Chen that US-Taiwan relations had now been restored to the level they were at before the 1970s. They allegedly told Chen that "independence is a good thing."
These actions forced then secretary of state Colin Powell to send State Department officials to tell Chen that the White House's "one China" policy remained unchanged, Wilkerson was quoted as saying.
The State Department continued its actions until US President George W. Bush personally asked Rumsfeld to cease encouraging Taiwanese independence and resume military exchanges with China, according to Wilkerson.
Wilkerson was also quoted as saying that Shaheen, a former AIT chairwoman, had claimed that Bush did not mean what he said when he supported the "one China" policy, which upset the Chinese government. She was later relieved of her post.
The report in Congressional Quarterly also quoted former Department of Defense spokesperson Lawrence DiRita as describing Wilkerson's comments as "ridiculous."
"The idea that there was some kind of DoD [defense department] attempt to favor some faction in Taiwan ... is just crazy," DiRita told Congressional Quarterly.
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