The statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that "[Taiwan] does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation," and his call for a peaceful unification between Taiwan and China have stirred up heavy political crossfire in Taipei.
Although Powell later corrected part of his terminology in an interview with CNBC (saying the right term was "peaceful resolution," not "peaceful unification") and the administration of US President George W. Bush clarified that no policy change had been made toward China and Taiwan, the timing and motivation of the initial unusual expression of Washington's stance on the cross-strait situation deserves an in-depth analysis.
First, did Powell's statement indicate changes to the US' long-term "one China" policy or was it simply a personal description of the current cross-strait situation?
The so-called US "one China" policy derives from the 1972 Shanghai communique, in which the US stated that it "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China."
The US later agreed that the government of the People's Republic of China is the "sole legal government of China."
Under the "one China" policy, the US has never recognized Taiwan or the Republic of China as an independent and sovereign country.
From the perspective of policy implementation, the US has consistently rejected the idea of supporting Taiwan's participation in any international organizations where statehood is required. Even so, the principle is not entirely without exceptions given, for example, Bush's support of Taiwan's recent bid for observer status at the UN-affiliated World Health Assembly.
In this regard, Powell's interpretation should be treated as a continuation of the US' acknowledgement of Taiwan's official status quo. No political implication should be added into such a description.
As Chen pledged on several occasions, Taiwan will not preclude any possibilities for developing a future relationship with China -- as long as the formula is accepted by the people of Taiwan.
What Taiwan insists on is the process used to reach an ultimate resolution. It must go through a democratic procedure and requires a free choice made by Taiwan's 23 million people.
The most likely scenario is that the remarks were Powell's personal elaboration of statements made by Bush on Dec. 9 last year when he met with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (
Sensing a growing consciousness of Taiwanese identity and a tendency toward de jure independence after Chen's re-election, Powell offered "lip service" to the Chinese leaders and hurt the Taiwanese people.
It is true that there have been ups and downs in relations between Washington and Taipei in the past 10 months. As Taiwan's leaders keep emphasizing Taiwan's independent sovereignty, Beijing has doubled its pressure on Washington.
It is natural for the Bush administration to make an extra effort to maintain a friendly atmosphere with its Chinese counterpart before the general election. Nevertheless, appeasing China should not be conducted at the expense of Taipei's pursuit of dialogue and normalization with Beijing.
Perhaps this was an unfortunate break in the momentum to press Beijing to be flexible on the resumption of cross-strait dialogue.
Liu Kuan-teh is a political commentator based in Taipei.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS