US warming to Chen's referendum

The George W. Bush administration is "relieved" that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) decided to change the focus of his planned election-day referendum, according to administration officials. But they say they are still highly suspicious of his motives and will be watching his statements and actions closely between now and the March 20 election day.

But officials note that overall US-Taiwan relations extend far beyond the referendum issue, and describe the relationship as "very strong."

They also say that the referendum wording Chen unveiled last week appears to remove what Washington saw as the threat to the status quo in cross-strait relations contained in Chen's earlier referendum plan, which was aimed directly at China's missile buildup across the Strait.

Such a threat was Bush's main concern when he slammed Chen and his referendum plan after meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) at the White House last month.

Nevertheless, while the administration will not oppose the new wording, it will not endorse it either, said one senior US official.

The US government's response to the new referendum wording, conveyed by US officials, seems to portray an administration still worried about Chen's aims and concerned that the referendum issue could still blow up into a problem for cross-strait issues and the US-China-Taiwan triangular equation.

What comes out of one interview the Taipei Times conducted with a senior official is a range of uncertainties that Chen has not answered, and deep questioning of Chen's leadership ability in calling for a public opinion poll on issues he, as president, should decide himself.

On the first question that the planned referendum proposes to ask whether Taiwan should spend more on arms in view of the missile threat, a US official noted Washington's efforts over recent years to convince Taiwan to spend more on defense and buy the weapons Bush promised in April 2001.

"We're willing to work with them on that," the official said.

"So this strikes me more as a question of leadership, then going to the public of Taiwan to ask for its opinion of this. This requires real leadership," he said.

"There's a threat there, and it requires expending resources and making decisions in Taiwan. That's what leaders need to do.

"We want to see more leadership out of Taiwan authorities on questions of defense, and turning it over to a question to the public I don't see as terribly helpful," he said.

He said the second referendum question on resuming cross-strait talks also is matter for the leaders to decide.

"We think both sides should take steps to resume a dialogue that has been stopped for years, or in the absence of a formal dialogue, finding ways to promote peace and stability between the two sides."

Saying that the administration still has not decided what to make of the new referendum formulation, the official said, "it depends on what your standard of measurement is."

"If your standard of measurement is `Is this a normal and genuine attempt to use the referendum in a way democracies normally do to settle contentious issues?' it's not really that.

"It still remains in the category of a highly symbolic move, and it is primarily designed to promote the domestic political fortunes of one candidate," he said.

"It could have been a lot worse. So I think officially what the United States is going to say is we don't endorse any particular referendum, but it's not something that we are going to oppose. We'll write it off as Taiwan's own business and their domestic politics."