US President George W. Bush was not worried that his praise of Taiwan as an example of a country that was under a repressive government and then liberalized would irritate China, a senior White House official said on Tuesday.
Mike Green, senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council, made the remarks in reply to a media question during a briefing in Kyoto before Bush mentioned Taiwan in a speech.
"The president ... is going to talk about his freedom agenda in a universal sense -- that countries that are successful economically, in order to continue being successful, are going to have to give their people opportunities to worship freely, to own property freely, to express themselves freely," Green said.
These are "elements of a strong and stable society," and there are examples across Asia where countries have found that they're stronger when they've done that, he said.
In his speech, Bush cited South Korea and Taiwan, "because Taiwan is an important example that this kind of pattern knows no cultural or historic line," Green said.
He said the point is not to lecture China or any other country in the region about what kind of system they should have exactly, but rather to make the point that Asia has had a pretty good run -- there has been peace and stability, as well as economic prosperity -- and that if countries want to keep being successful, these other elements are going to have to be brought into the political process.
Green acknowledged that the Chinese are sensitive but that Bush was not worried about antagonizing them with these words, which he said will be repeated when the president is in Beijing, because "we approach this from the premise that US-China relations are good and that we're committed to making them better, and that President Hu [Jintao] (
"So it's in that context and done in a way to explain what else will help China succeed," Green said.
Beijing, however, yesterday deflected Bush's call to embrace democracy and religious freedom.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
"Chinese people enjoy all forms of democracy and freedom under law, including freedom of religion and belief," Liu said.
"We hope to increase consensus and mutual confidence through President Bush's visit," he said.
China was willing to discuss its human rights "on the basis of equality, mutual respect, and non-interference in internal affairs," Liu said.
But Liu said China need not take Taiwan as its model.
"Taiwan has its circumstances, and the mainland has its circumstances," he said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS