China felt that with its new leverage with the Bush administration over the war on terrorism and other international issues, it could get Washington to relent on arms sales to Taiwan -- a strategy that turned out to be a miscalculation.
"Rice recognized this and told them [the arms sales decision] does not reflect a shift in US policy toward Taiwan. It reflects the decision Bush made in April 2001 to sell the arms to Taiwan," said one observer close to US policymaking.
During her visit, coming about a month after Chen's inaugural address, Rice refused to back down on arms sales, telling the Chinese leaders that the US felt it was on the right track with its policy.
However, Rice did try to advance the resumption of cross-strait dialogue.
"She planted a seed in the mind of the Chinese leaders. She said, `What can the US do to facilitate the resumption of talks?' The idea was to have the Chinese leaders and Taiwan start thinking about what to do after the [legislative] election season," Glaser said.
RSS