Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) was "thrilled" over what he accomplished on Taiwan during his meeting with US President George W. Bush, according to a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration who spent time with Wen during his Washington visit this week.
"I have never seen a leader leave happier than Wen Jiabao," said Kurt Campbell, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian affairs in the late 1990s. Campbell was speaking at a conference on US-China relations hosted by the Asia Society in Washington on Thursday.
"He was thrilled at every level. He was thrilled about Taiwan, he was thrilled about the kind of respect that he was given," Campbell said.
Campbell, now with George Washington University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, attended Wen's meetings during the visit.
Other panelists, including a second former Clinton administration official, said they agreed with the content of the message Bush delivered to Wen during their meeting on Tuesday, but they took issue with how Bush delivered it.
"It was clear that he needed to give a warning to both sides," said Winston Lord, a former ambassador to Beijing in the Reagan and elder Bush administrations, and Assistant Secretary of State for Asia in the Clinton administration.
"But the way he did it, sitting in the Oval Office with Wen Jiabao, was a big mistake. He should have done it, but not that way," he said.
Lord also said he understood that Bush "in private exchanges said he opposed independence, as opposed to not supporting it," which, Lord said, would be a "dramatic shift" in Taiwan policy "and a big mistake."
Campbell agreed with Lord.
"Our friends in Taiwan really do not have a good picture of what the administration's view is, because [it] does not have a concerted view on this issue. Like almost everything else, you have divisions within the administration," he said.
Minxin Pei, an academic with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, echoed this. Noting that US efforts to communicate with Chen in recent weeks were "ignored," he said "the leaders in Taiwan really do not believe the White House is serious about toning down the rhetoric."
Bates Gill, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, disagreed with the feeling of many in Washington that Bush's statements reflected a "China tilt."
Noting that military ties between the US and Taiwan were the closest in 25 years, Gill said the US can "get to the point where democratization and Taiwanization of Taiwan is actually a factor in the solution [to cross-strait issues]," rather than the problem.
Campbell said he was worried that Bush may have been driven by a "perception that President Chen was `dissing' the president, was sticking it to the president," and so Bush took umbrage at this.
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