Think tank wary on US relations

Although the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to the White House didn't break any new ground, Taiwan can only be cautiously optimistic about the future of Taiwan-US relations and continue striving for more common bilateral interests, analysts said yesterday.

"It's obvious that China not only failed to obtain anything substantial from the US, but it also lost face during Hu's visit while the US has at least gained something with the huge trade packages China signed during the visit," Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a political scientist at the Soochow University said.

Lo made the remarks at a press conference held by the Taiwan Thinktank to discuss the implications for US-China-Taiwan relations in the wake of the Bush-Hu meeting.

As much as Hu wanted to be seen as having the prestige of being able to stand side-by-side with the world's most powerful leader, the result of the meeting demonstrated that an unequal relationship still exists between the US and China; one between the world's superpower and a major power, he said.

"Look at the body language of the two leaders: Bush tapped Hu on the shoulder three times as if he was comforting an uneasy Hu, but Hu didn't tap back. The action of tapping his shoulder gave out the sense of a relationship between an elder and a younger person," said Lo.

With the obvious disparities of agenda between the two leaders during the meeting, Lo predicted "China bashing" would be a major theme in the run up to the mid-term elections for the US congress at the end of this year as the Republican administration is now facing growing domestic discontent related to lopsided US-China trade relations.

Lo said that future US-China relations would remain "complex" and would meet their first test when China decided whether or not to endorse the US' punitive actions against Iran in the UN Security Council meeting next week.

Reflecting on cross-strait relations, Lo said it was to the benefit of Taiwan to "hedge" against a rising China by avoiding becoming overly reliant on the economic opportunities it presents and remain cautious about the political, military and psychological threats it poses.

Vice president of the Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation Raymond Wu (吳瑞國) said the US goal of demanding China become a "responsible stakeholder," a term proposed by the State Department deputy secretary Robert Zoellick, and a theme for the Bush-Hu meeting, confirmed the decision-making influence of Zoellick in future US-China relations.

Wu also urged Taiwan to expand its interests with the US based on common values to try and outflank US-China relations, which although share joint interests, share little when it comes to democracy and freedom.

He said the Taiwanese government should take note of Zoellick's emerging importance in US-China-Taiwan affairs.

Paul Lin (林保華), a Chinese democracy activist who currently resides in Taiwan, warned that the protest of a Falun Gong member who heckled Hu during the White House ceremony may trigger even more persecution of Falun Gong in China in the future.