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UN REFERENDUM: Experts warn of damage to US-Taiwan relations

"The US cares about Taiwan's national security, but it has no intention of helping Taiwan expand its international space."

Lin Cheng-yi, a researcher at Academia Sinica

Panelists attending a forum on the nation's UN bid yesterday warned of possible consequences to US-Taiwan relations following the government's push for a referendum on a UN bid using the name "Taiwan."

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, said he wanted to reassure the US government that "nothing will happen" if the referendum takes place alongside the presidential election next March.

"Damage has been caused to US-Taiwan relations [because of the UN bid]," said Tien Hung-mao (田弘茂), the president of the Institute for National Policy Research (INPR), host of the forum. "Recent statements by US officials implied that there is a new way of thinking about the Taiwan issue."

Tien urged the government to take the US stance on the matter seriously.

"Unless we don't want to count on US support in the international community anymore," he said.

Cho Hui-wan (卓慧菀), an assistant professor at National Chung Hsing University's Graduate Institute of International Politics, said she disagreed with Chen's remarks in the Journal interview that "nothing happened" even though the US had been unhappy about his initiative to hold a referendum in 2004 and the abolition of the National Unification Council and its guidelines last year.

"It's true China didn't start a war nor did it adopt high-handed measures against Taiwan following those events, but that didn't mean that `nothing happened,'" Cho said. "China has actively severed Taiwan's diplomatic ties, even brutally hampered its participation in the WHO. Cross-strait relations are obviously tenser than before."

Lin Cheng-yi (林正義), a researcher of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica, had a more optimistic view on US-Taiwan relations.

He told the forum that although the UN referendum plan had provoked criticism from the US, it would not bring a structural change to US-Taiwan relations in the long term.

"The US cares about Taiwan's national security, but it has no intention of helping Taiwan expand its international space. China thinks it represents Taiwan internationally. Given this, Taiwan has to make its own way -- otherwise it will eventually be marginalized," Lin said.

Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), also present at the forum, called for the establishment of a high-level communications channel between the US and Taiwan so that the two countries could contribute to democracy, peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.
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