China's leadership has miscalculated the cross-strait situation, especially regarding the direct links issue, believing that the two sides can negotiate through non-government entities, President Chen Shui-bian (
"Whether a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait depends not on Taiwan but on the other side," Chen said during a meeting with Kurt Campbell, senior vice president of the Center for Security and International Studies, a US-based think tank.
"Taiwan-US relations should be a quasi-alliance relationship, because this is in Taiwan's interests and the common interests of the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Chen made the comments after discussing cross-strait issues and Taiwan-US ties with a delegation led by Campbell, a former US assistant secretary of defense.
Chen said that the "five-nos" he raised during his inauguration speech two years ago were based on the assumption that China would denounce the use military force against Taiwan.
"However, China's government obviously is not willing to give up its military threats and only wants to upgrade its military equipment and expand its military budget," Chen said.
Chen said the first step to normalizing cross-strait relations was to normalize trade relations.
Over the past two years, he said, Taiwan had continuously shown the utmost sincerity and goodwill in the hope that the two sides could establish greater contacts and negotiation channels with no preconditions.
Unfortunately, China's leadership has wasted two years through their miscalculations, especially in the belief that the two sides can negotiate through non-government entities.
When responding to the visitors' queries about the possibility of a military confrontation across the Taiwan Strait, Chen said that Taiwan wanted only peace and opposed the missile buildup and war.
The president said that the question of war "needn't be addressed to Taiwan, but to China."
Chen also stressed that what concerned Taiwan was whether it was militarily prepared to defend itself from China's attacks.
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