It somehow seemed all in a day's work for President Chen Shui-bian (
During his nine-day trip to visit South American allies, his plane was diverted in mid-air, he visited five countries not on his original schedule, he deepened a spat with the US -- the nation's main foreign benefactor -- and put two of his hosts in hot water with China.
But then Chen has secured a reputation for keeping both friends and foes just a little off balance.
He set off on May 4 to visit Paraguay and Costa Rica, two of the nation's dwindling pack of 25 diplomatic allies.
Chen took off for Paraguay with a plan to stop briefly in Beirut, Lebanon. He arranged the Lebanese transit stop after declining a US offer to set down in Anchorage, Alaska.
Anchorage, Chen said, was a slight to Taiwanese dignity, a far cry from New York and Los Angeles, where he'd been given permission to visit on previous Latin American forays.
But en route to Beirut, Chen's plane had to change course for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates after China got wind of where he was headed.
Beijing pressured Lebanese officials to deny him landing rights.
From Abu Dhabi, it was on to Amsterdam for a short refueling stop, and then finally to the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion -- in all a 37-hour journey.
Four days of Latin American meetings followed, including an impromptu photo-op in San Jose, Costa Rica, with a slightly confused looking Laura Bush.
The US first lady was standing in for her husband to represent the US at the inauguration of President Oscar Arias.
Chen seized the opportunity to shake her hand.
The handshake, it seems, did not suffice to convince the Taiwanese leader to accept another US offer of an Anchorage transit stop on the return leg of his journey to Taiwan -- despite the US being the nation's most important foreign ally.
Chen and the US quarreled over his Feb. 27 announcement on scrapping the National Unification Council and unification guidelines. Washington feared the move would raise cross-strait tensions.
So instead of Anchorage, Chen flew to the Dominican Republic -- another Taiwanese ally -- before making a surprise stop in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. There, according to Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (
Chen later confirmed that he had met Qaddafi himself.
The Libyan stop predictably infuriated Beijing, which has full diplomatic relations with Tripoli.
"This ... will have a negative impact on bilateral relations between China and Libya,'' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said. "We express our strong dissatisfaction and have made solemn representations to Libya.''
From Libya, Chen made an unannounced stop in Indonesia, another Chinese diplomatic ally, where he visited an industrial zone and met local leaders on the relatively isolated island of Batam.
The Chinese protested this visit too.
"We demand Indonesia take practical action ... in order to maintain the overall Sino-Indonesian relations," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Liu as saying.
When Chen finally arrived back in Taiwan on Friday, about 1,000 of his supporters held up banners at the airport saying, "Well done, President Chen Shui-bian.''
Chen's Democratic Progressive Party said the stopovers in Beijing's allies amounted to major diplomatic breakthroughs, though some disagreed with this assessment.
The mass-circulation daily United Daily News said Chen's sudden appearances in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Libya had not been sufficiently planned to lay the base for lasting relationships.
"Cultivating a wide range of contacts is not wrong, but diplomatic work is like growing a tree,'' the newspaper wrote on Saturday.
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