Last year, DeLay shepherded through the House the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act (TSEA), a measure bitterly condemned by Beijing which would have resulted in much closer cooperation between the US and Taiwan militaries and which some observers feel would be tantamount to a mutual security arrangement.
DeLay introduced the bill after a different version written by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms failed to get approved even in Helms' committee.
Dogged determination
The House approved by the bill 341-70, in March 2000, but the bill never did get the Senate's nod. Last week in Houston, DeLay said that he gave Chen a promise that he would reintroduce the bill this session.
While DeLay was pushing the TSEA through the House, he was also one of the House's leading proponents of better trade with China, and was largely responsible for ushering through the House the bill granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations status, which was approved by the body 237-197 in May.
While condemning China's leadership, DeLay argued that increased trade would help instill Western ideas in China, enlarging a middle class that would demand democratic values -- ironically the same stance as that taken by the Clinton administration which DeLay condemned.
At about the same time, in March last year, DeLay made a little-noticed speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, in which he called for an end to the "one China" policy, saying the US should recognize Taiwan as a separate entity.
"We have just asked him to repeat that at the House International Relations Committee, and he said,` I'd love to do that,'" the Formosan association's Chen said. "There's one China and one Taiwan, and DeLay understands that, and we expect him to continue in that direction," Chen said.
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