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Bush's comments on referendums draw mixed reaction in Washington

US President George W. Bush's warning to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) about his plans for a referendum was not a complete surprise in Washington, but they were received differently by different observers. Most felt that, in view of Chen's insistence on holding a referendum, they were inevitable.

Bush's remarks distressed con-servatives in Washington who were among Bush's biggest supporters and were instrumental in forging his Taiwan policy. One told the Taipei Times he considered Bush's remarks "sickening."

John Tkacik, senior fellow in Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation, said, "for the president of the United States to appear on the podium with the premier of communist China and take to task the democratically-elected president of Taiwan for the purpose of purportedly moving in the direction of unilateral change in the status quo is jarring."

"Obviously, President Chen will not be making decisions unilaterally. He will have the approval and votes of over half of Taiwan's voter" on the referendum," Tkacik said.

Taiwan's future "is something for the people of Taiwan to decide, not the people of China or the people of the United States," he said.

Alan Romberg, director of the China program at the Henry L. Stimson Center, said that with Chen's insistence on holding the referendum and China's sharp response, "the actions in Taiwan were beginning to create some risk to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

"The administration has tried very hard to deal with this quite privately. Obviously there was a sense that this wasn't having an effect," he said.

The referendum was seen as "provocative, and therefore destabilizing and contrary to US interests," Romberg said.

"There is a sense in this town that Chen is simply ignoring US equities here," he said.

David Brown, associate director of Asian studies at Johns Hopkins University, said he felt Bush's pressure would not deter Chen from going ahead with the referendum.

Brown said Chen was "too personally identified with it" and has bragged in campaign rallies how he has handled the situation with Washington successfully.

"I don't see how he cannot go ahead and schedule this unless the opposition in some fashion prevents him from doing it," Brown said.

"Chen has painted himself into a corner on this referendum in such a way that if he were to announce that he wasn't going to go ahead with it, he would look spineless to his supporters," he said.
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