After months of relative silence on Taiwan issues by key members of the his administration, President George W. Bush himself broke the silence on the eve of his trip to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing this week.
He had two messages: That Taiwan is a "good friend" of the US and that neither Taipei nor Beijing should take any action that amounts to a "provocation" that would endanger prospects for a peaceful resolution of cross-strait relations.
Bush delivered the first message in his weekly national radio address to the US public that aired Saturday morning within hours of his departure to Asia. The second message came in an interview Friday with reporters from China's Xinhua News Agency and Japanese and Korean news outlets.
At the same time, Bush delivered a third message, but one that was aimed more at Beijing than Taipei -- that US' Taiwan policy has not changed under his administration and is consistent with that of his predecessors.
That policy declaration was presaged by his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice during a press briefing Thursday on Bush's trip, but only in response to a question by a Taiwanese reporter. In her answer, Rice said that there would be no restatement of US-Taiwan policy during Bush's two-days of meetings with top Beijing officials.
Keeping quiet
In discussing the Beijing leg of the trip, Rice never mentioned Taiwan. Neither did Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during a hearing Thursday before the House International Relations Commit-tee's subcommittee on East Asia.
Even Secretary of State Colin Powell was mum on Taiwan in appearances before congressional committees this month to discuss Asian policy in the context of Bush's 2003 fiscal year budget.
Clearly, the Bush administration has been trying to play down issues related to Taiwan as Washington seeks to maintain China's cooperation in the war on terrorism while trying to find leverage to raise other issues of currently greater importance to the administration: China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, human rights, the accessibility to China's markets to US goods now that Beijing is in the WTO and US plans to build a missile defense shield.
These actions, however, do not mean that Bush will ignore Taiwan during his trip. The US will likely complain about China's continued buildup of short-range ballistic missiles across the Strait, perhaps as part of Washington's concerns over China's overall military expansion and modernization.
But for other aspects of the triangular Washington-Beijing-Taipei relationship -- such as how Taiwanese domestic developments like the Dec. 1 legislative elections affect the cross-strait equation, or prospects for new cross-strait dialogue are unlikely to be brought up by Bush for major discussion. He will likely reiterate existing policy and try to leave it at that.
For it's part, China is likely to raise the Taiwan issue as a matter of some importance, as it always does. It will probably first object to continued US arms sales to Taiwan as Washington gets ready to fulfill some of the sales commitments it made last April.
The US will likely respond by citing the Taiwan Relations Act, the 1979 US law that set the course of US-Taiwan ties after Washington recognized Beijing and which pledged that the US would supply Taiwan with the defensive weapons it needed to fend off a Chinese attack.
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