Powell says `one China' unchanged

REAFFIRMATION: The US secretary of state hailed the policy as `clear cut' and `principled,' but once again warned Beijing not to use force against Taipei

By Charles Snyder

STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON

US Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to reassure China in the wake of President Shui-bian's successful two-day transit in New York, saying that Washington has "no hidden agenda" regarding Taiwan.

But Powell balanced that with a warning to Beijing not to use force against Taipei.

Powell made his comments, his first since Chen's trip, in a speech at a conference on US-China relations at Texas A&M University arranged by US and Chinese organizations and attended by former Chinese vice premier Qian Qichen.

"President [George W.] Bush has made this point many times," Powell said. "We have no hidden agendas here."

"There is no other agenda but our single policy, our `one-China,' which is clear cut, it is principled, it has served us well for a number of decades and it is set out in the three US-China communiques and in the Taiwan Relations Act," he said.

Powell also issued a strong warning to China about its missile buildup.

"We have to take note of the military build-up opposite Taiwan on the mainland," Powell said.

"Whether China chooses peace or coercion to resolve its differences with Taiwan will tell us a great deal about the kind of role China seeks with its neighbors and seeks with us," he said.

Powell's comments marks the most extensive and definitive statement a senior US administration official has made about cross-strait relations in some time.

The comments follow a year in which US policy toward Taiwan has showed two conflicting faces, complicating the trilateral relationship between Taipei, Beijing and Washington.

One the one hand, trade relations have soured, particularly over the issue of intellectual property rights. Washington has also expressed exasperation over a number of announcements by Chen that Taipei did not alert the Bush administration to beforehand and which threatened to inflame relations with Beijing at a critical period of improved Beijing-Washington ties.

On the other hand, communications between Taiwan and US officials in Washington are, by many accounts, the best in decades, and Chen's New York trip, sanctioned in advance by Washington, represented a major relaxation in the rules of transit and a considerable warming in bilateral ties.

Underlying this are the increasingly close military-to-military ties between Taiwan and Washington, the growing number of official trips on both sides and the presence of a large number of ardently pro-Taiwan officials in and near the top ranks of the Bush administration foreign-policy establishment.

Powell described Taiwan as "the issue that I think is at the top of all of the issues with which we exchange views with our Chinese friends. We know how strongly China feels about Taiwan, and our abiding interest remains in the peaceful resolution of differences between China and Taiwan."

Trying to strike a balance between US ties with Beijing and Taipei, Powell said, "We take our commitments and our obligations to both sides seriously, and I reaffirm that policy here again today before our Chinese friends."

"We applaud the promising cross-strait, people-to-people efforts that are under way, and we hope to see more of these exchanges between the mainland and Taiwan," he said.

Meanwhile, the White House Wednesday declined to comment on whether Bush was Chen's and Taiwan's "guardian angel."

While she was accompanying Chen during his stay New York, Therese Shaheen, the chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan in Washington, said that Bush was Chen's guardian angel, a phrase Chen repeated in his transit stop in Anchorage, Alaska, en route from Panama to Taiwan.

Asked about that during his regular press briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan skirted the issue.

"Our position on the China-Taiwan issue remains the same, and we've made that position very well-known," McClellan said.

Powell did not mention of his brief encounter with Chen in Panama Monday, and did not answer any questions afterward.

Support democratic regimes, Bush says

STABILITY: In a speech that was scheduled to be delivered yesterday, the US president was to say that support for authoritarian regimes had led only to diplomatic headaches

AP , WASHINGTON

Questioning past US policy in the Middle East, US President George W. Bush is arguing that supporting undemocratic governments in the name of regional stability has produced only "frustration and pent-up emotions" there.

In a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy yesterday, Bush was to champion democratic gains around the globe but focus especially on the still-roiled Middle East, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.

The speech was scheduled on the same day Bush signs an US$87.5 billion package he requested for military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"After 60 years of trying to find stability through regimes that were not devoted to political liberty for their people, what we found is that we did not buy security and stability, but rather frustration and pent-up emotions in a region that has fallen behind in terms of prosperity, and in fact continues to produce ideologies of hatred," Rice said.

Bush will tell those suspicious of US motives in countries like Iraq that the political and economic freedoms America wants to see in the region are not synonymous with Westernization, she said.

"If you look at democratic development in the world, it makes its peace with local traditions and local and religious and ideological views," she said. "It's not a one-size-fits-all approach."

Those comments could be Bush's rebuttal to anti-Western sentiment brewing in the Middle East. Rice said, however, the intent is to associate the US with people who seek freedom, and to say he believes it's possible they can achieve it.

"This is not the United States doing something to this region," she said. "This is a region in which the stirrings are really quite clear."

The speech, announced only on Wednesday, would outline democracy's march during the past several years and work that remains to be done, especially in the Middle East, Rice said.

"At a time when people are struggling to be able to achieve this and to make progress in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, I think he thinks it's important to put this in a large, regional context," she said.

Rice said Bush would discuss how he believes that America's liberty, freedom and security are "inextricably linked."

"He'll talk about challenges that democracy still faces in places like Burma and North Korea and places like even China where economic liberty gives an opportunity for the march of political liberty, but where there needs to be a commitment to making that link," she said.

The president will express his support for positive developments occurring in places like Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia "where you're beginning to get some stirrings of the need for a political voice for the people," Rice said.

Saudi Arabia decided last month to hold its first local elections, at a time when the Saudi royal family is under pressure to bring democratic reform. Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has an unelected national advisory body, known as the Shura Council, and no parliament.

US representative rebuts KMT's accusations

By Lin Chieh-yu

STAFF REPORTER , IN ALASKA

Taiwan's representative to the US Chen Chien-jen yesterday rebutted the accusation that he had betrayed the Chinese Natio-nalist Party (KMT), saying that the diplomatic work to fortify the ties between Taiwan and the US cannot become an issue in the power struggle between the nation's political parties.

Chen yesterday downplayed KMT Chairman Lien Chan's accusations that he had betrayed his old party and said that if he responded to Lien's accusations ferociously, it might further polarize domestic politics. Therefore he would only "insist on his own way," and have no wish for vicious verbal exchanges.

"I know that President Chen Shui-bian's successful trip would have a positive impact on the campaign for the presidential election next year, and Chen also managed to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell, so the pan-blue camp seem to be venting their an-ger on me," Chen said.

Chen Chien-jen, who accompanied the president during his stopover in Alaska, yesterday talked to Taiwanese journalists in private, and for the first time he defended himself against the accusations from the pan-blue camp.

"I think Lien and James Soong's aides are stupid not to come up with an adequate response to the president's success. Targeting me does not help their campaign," Chen said.

"I have my principles and judgment and I can walk away from the position at any time. These criticisms do not affect me," he said.

Lien visited Europe and the US last month and during his stay in New York and Washington DC, the aides accompanying Lien criticized Chen for not organizing proper receptions for the KMT chairman.

They also said that Chen "forgot his roots," since he had been trained comprehensively by the KMT.

Lien's wife, Lien Fang Yu, even refused flowers from Chen's wife, Yolanda Ho, at the airport.

"Lien planned to visit the US, but he did not notify the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in advance. Lien's aides only told mine about Lien's plan three days before his arrival," Chen said.

He said that there was no regulation saying that a former vice president should be given special treatment, but aides at his office still offered to brief Lien about Taiwan-US relations. Chen and the deputy representative, Michael Tsai, were also present at the airport to welcome Lien.

"Lien told us that the brief was not necessary, so we only arranged the airport reception," Chen said. However, when the KMT said that TECO had a political stand, the party did not mention that Chen met Lien at the airport in person, or the efforts TECO had made for Lien.

Chen responded to this by saying that because Lien gave late notice, his wife Yolanda had to cancel her planned trip to Boston to greet the Lien couple, since she knew Lien's wife very well. However, Lien's wife declined the flowers. Chen said that he could only say he felt sorry about the incident and he saw that sometimes political issues made people twist their principles.

Lien's aides, on the other hand, said that Chen was a heartless person. Chen replied that he knew very well how much Lien had done for him, as well as how much former President Lee Teng-hui had done for him. He said it was meaningless to label each other on political issues, and this only made domestic politics become polarized.

Regarding rumors that some people were trying to get rid of him as the representative, Chen smiled and said that in the past he had a policy of "three noes": no lying, no misleading and no ignoring those in need. He said that these three principles still served as his motto now.

Chen said that when the president asked him very sincerely to take up the position as Taiwan's representative to the US, he was thinking that the fields of national defense, diplomacy, intelligence, and cross-strait relations lacked competent candidates, and therefore he considered the job opportunity with a positive attitude, and he was still like that now.

He said that some people regarded him too politically, but he would still insist on his own way.

The pan-blue camp's lies

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the fundamental fallacy underlying the arguments most frequently heard during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's election campaign, so let's examine all these lies and demolish them one by one.

Lie number 1: "The DPP administration's performance has been extremely poor." Fact: Despite quite a few flip-flops and an unrelenting boycott in the Legislative Yuan by a pan-blue camp hellbent on wrecking Taiwan's economy, the DPP administration has done a good job in steering the Taiwanese economy out of its first recession. Actually, according to international organizations, the Taiwanese economy has even become more competitive and efficient over the past three years.

Lie number 2: "The KMT can manage the Taiwanese economy better than the DPP, so only the KMT can bring Taiwan back to the good old times." Fact: This is really the joke of the century. We all know that during the Lien's tenure as premier from 1993 to 1996 and Vincent Siew's from 1996 to 2000, the "economic strategy" simply consisted of putting all the eggs in the IT basket, based on the the idiotic assumption that the US export markets for Taiwanese IT products would keep growing forever. When the IT bubble burst in mid-2000, of course the Taiwanese economy was badly affected. The DPP has worked extremely hard to diversify Taiwan's industrial structure.

Lie number 3: "Why waste time with those useless referendums? Let's keep the status quo and concentrate on the economy." Fact: If Taiwan can forcefully assert its independence from the Chinese dictators, and be internationally accepted with a brand new name and identity, it will be much easier for Taiwan to sign free-trade agreements (FTAs) that are so vital for Taiwan's future.

Lie number 4: "Why provoke China all the time, like the DPP administration is doing?" Fact: Hasn't the DPP administration extended too many olive branches to the Chinese dictators? And have any of them been ever reciprocated? On the contrary, China has stepped up its suppressive and overbearing behavior in the international arena. That statement by the Chinese official at the World Health Assembly, "Who cares about you Taiwanese?" is a perfect indication of this.

Lie number 5: "If the DPP keeps provoking China, eventually China will invade." Fact: China has already made it clear that Taiwan's refusal to unify on China's terms could be grounds for a military attack. Which means that by sticking to the status quo Taiwan is already provoking China. The only reason why China has not attacked yet is because it knows that any invasion will almost certainly be crushed. If they attacked using non-conventional weapons, it would cause not just a massive number of civilian casualties, but the global horror and repulsion could result in countries recognizing Taiwan. Needless to say, the "Boycott made in China" campaigns will gain huge impetus and the communist princelings who run the most profitable Chinese corporations will be hit straight in their pockets.

George Dukes

Sunderland, UK