Supporters of Taiwan in Washington took senior officials of the administration of US President George W. Bush to task on Friday for comments last week about Taiwan's international status and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the Democratic Progressive Party's plan to hold an election-day referendum on UN membership.
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, a staunch supporter of Taiwan, criticized Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte for calling the referendum a move toward a declaration of independence, calling the statement "regrettable and irresponsible."
"If Mr Negroponte's goal was to help validate a future Chinese attack on the island," the congressman said in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "then he most certainly succeeded."
In a vitriolic 1,100-word letter, Tancredo accused Negroponte of "selective hearing" of Chen's so-called "five noes" pledge not to make major changes in Taiwan's status during his presidency by disregarding Chen's preface that made the pledge contingent on China's rejection of the use of force against Taiwan.
"The [State] Department has repeatedly and pathologically mischaracterized President Chen's `Five Noes,'" Tancredo said.
Charging that the Bush administration has treated Taiwan unfairly under Chen, Tancredo urged Rice to ensure that the US "will stand with the people of democratic Taiwan, as President Bush promised we would, rather than standing with their oppressors in Beijing."
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the leading Taiwan-independence advocates in Washington, took aim at Dennis Wilder, the senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, who said that Taiwan's international status is uncertain, making the nation ineligible for UN membership.
"Taiwan can join the UN, if the United States and other Western nations have the political will to stand up for their basic principles of human rights and democracy," FAPA executive director Chen Wen-yen (陳文彥) wrote to Wilder.
The letters ended a week in which lingering tensions that had festered for months over US-Taiwan relations came to light, as US officials abandoned their customary "say as little as possible about Taiwan" practice to criticize Chen and the DPP for what Washington considers pro-independence activities that could hurt US-China relations.
In its letter, FAPA disputed Wilder's statement that Taiwan is not a state, saying that international recognition is not a prerequisite of statehood.
Recalling the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) claim to represent all of China until 15 years ago -- a claim not recognized by the international community -- Chen Wen-yen wrote that "after its remarkable transition to democracy in the early 1990s, there is now a free and democratic Taiwan, which only claims to represent itself. We should not let its future be held hostage to either the unsavory legacy of the former repressive Chinese Nationalist rulers on the island, or the dictates of the present Chinese Communist rulers of the People's Republic of China (PRC)."
Taiwan satisfies the recognized definition of a nation-state, he said. These include a defined territory, a permanent population and a government capable of entering into relations with other nations.
Noting that only 24 nations recognize Taiwan, he recalled that it took 72 years after its revolution for the US to be recognized by as many states.
"Was the US therefore not a nation-state during that time?" he said.
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