Print

Mail

wiki links

Letter: Bush must tackle China bill

US officials have generally greeted China's heavily sugarcoated ultimatum to Taiwan, the "Anti-Secession" Law, with mild language, even though the law has clearly damaged the absurd cross-strait status quo that the US is always trying to cling to.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) got an unceremonious public tongue-lashing from US President George W. Bush in December 2003 for some baby steps Chen had proposed to improve the lives of Taiwanese, which was viewed as a potential unilateral move to alter the cross-strait situation.

Now that China, after turning a blind eye to nearly universal objections, has single-handedly redefined the status quo, Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Obviously, US officials are trying very hard to avoid offending China, because they are still holding on to the hope that China can help them defuse the North Korean nuclear armament crisis. But a low-key response to the Anti-Secession Law is precisely the wrong message to send to China. Once the Chinese realize (they must already have) that the North Korean problem is a matter of leverage, they can try to influence the US on matters related to Taiwan. The North Korean problem will never be resolved through multi-country talks, because the Chinese would be more than happy to keep a perfectly good crisis alive and milk it indefinitely.

The US must therefore make clear to the Chinese that cooperation between the US and China on North Korea will never be at the expense of Taiwan. Only by de-linking the two subjects can the US force China to reveal its true intentions regarding North Korea's nuclear program. And only then can any progress be made.

The first place to start the de-linking would be for Bush to speak out on the Anti-Secession Law, which after all is a promise by an authoritarian China to annex democratic Taiwan, which is an extreme affront to Bush's stated policy of spreading democracy globally. This can then be followed by a few concrete steps to counterbalance China's unilateral move.

Huang Jei-hsuan

California
This story has been viewed 2311 times.