During Fargo's talks with the officials, "that was one of the messages he conveyed quite clearly," the Chinese analysts told Glaser.
But Armitage's remarks have highlighted a feeling in recent weeks that the administration is backing down from its earlier, unequivocally pro-Taiwan stance.
The remarks "underscore the steady deterioration of US/Taiwan relations under the Bush/Chen administrations since 2001," said this week's edition of the influential inside-Washington newsletter, the Nelson Report.
"Clearly, a player as sophisticated as Armitage knows the difference between misstatements and nuance in singing the `one China mantra,'" editor Chris Nelson wrote, especially in view of Powell's earlier statement.
Indeed, Nelson wrote, Bush "himself has led a concerted effort to make it clear to Taipei that the US almost certainly will not defend the island if it is the actions of Taiwan which seemingly provoked a Chinese attack."
Nevertheless, he wrote, "the Bush administration is not `abandoning' Taiwan," but that the trend under Bush is that the administration has worked actively "to res-train what it sees as the dangerous tendencies of Chen Shui-bian and the pro-independence political factions on Taiwan."
In his comments to reporters on Wednesday, Boucher reiterated US support for renewed cross-strait dialogue.
"It's an issue we spend a lot of time working on, and we try to help people move towards a peaceful dialogue and a peaceful resolution of the issues," he said.
He said he did not know whether the administration was holding discussions with Taiwan's officials on the remark by Armitage.
Taiwan's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that it would ask its top representative in Washington, David Lee (李大維), to seek official clarification of Armitage's remarks.
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