In what appears to be a further illustration of the deep divide between the Clinton administration and US congressional sentiments towards Taiwan, a high-ranking official on US-Taiwan relations spoke out against the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act yesterday -- just as a conservative American magazine urged Congress to pass the proposed bill.
Richard Bush, the chairman of the board and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, voiced his opposition to the proposed bill on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the current administration's policy.
It would additionally undercut the executive's power on the issue of arms sales to the island, the Central News Agency reported.
Bush delivered the controversial statement at a meeting with a group of Taiwan lawmakers visiting the US, led by vice speaker of the legislature Yao Eng-chi (饒穎奇).
The security bill would require the executive branch to report all of Taiwan's requests for arms to Congress.
If passed, it would upgrade Taiwan's military relationship with the US by calling for the sale of more advanced ballistic missile defense systems and the setup of a new communications link between Taiwan and the US military.
Bush said the bill would skew the triangular relationship between Washington, Beijing and Taipei, and would actually damage Taiwan's security in the long run.
Although the bill has a good chance of passing through the House, it will be more difficult to get Senate approval, analysts in Taiwan said.
"The Democrats have a majority in the Senate and they are most likely to support Clinton's policy," said foreign policy analyst Vincent Chen (3?敶? of National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations.
"Unless the cross-strait situation worsens considerably in the next few months, it's unlikely the Senate will pass the bill," he added.
An editorial in the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, meanwhile, rebuked the way the Clinton administration and US businesses have cuddled up to Beijing.
It said while major businesses gathered in Shanghai for the Fortune Global Forum earlier this month, the corporations turned a blind eye to media censorship and militant declarations by Chinese president Jiang Zemin (|蕞A民) and Premier Zhu Rongji (|黑靚? on the Taiwan question.
The US business and political establishment has persisted in the kowtow -- so mesmerizing is the prospect of potentially huge corporate profits tomorrow from sycophantic "engagement" today, according to the magazines' editorial.
Washington and Wall Street have always angrily denied that such engagement might inevitably entail some major betrayal of America's principles and international security interests, it added.
The editorial called on the Congress to overturn such a policy of "appeasement" by passing the bill.
"Behold, the essential nature of engagement with China is revealed. Call it appeasement. There is one institution that can salvage some honor from this disgraceful farce," the editorial said.
"That is, the US Congress, which should pass the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act without delay and dare the president to veto it," it added.
Bush, who holds a doctorate in Chinese affairs from Colombia University worked for the CIA before being appointed to head AIT in 1997.
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