A former senior Bush administration official has criticized the US government for taking a prolonged and public stance against plans by Taiwan to hold a referendum in March on UN membership, saying the measure is likely to fail and that Washington should have realized that in the first place.
Steven Yates, a former senior Asia adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and one-time lobbyist for Taiwan, told a seminar at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington on Tuesday that the experience of the two referendums during the legislative elections on Saturday, and of two similar polls during the 2004 presidential election, shows that any controversial measures in Taiwan are "doomed to fail."
Policymakers in Washington should realize this and should therefore not have made a big issue of it, he said. As a result, he felt the Bush administration's position on the UN referendum was "ill-advised."
"I don't feel very comfortable about the sophistication of the US approach, where we feel obliged to speak out publicly on domestic political matters that are likely to sort themselves out, even if they have international implications," said Yates, who now runs his own international consulting firm.
The failure of Saturday's referendums and those in 2004 means that "there might be some questions about how wise it is for the US -- as a matter of policy -- to begin responding to the prospect of a particular referendum very early in the process, if domestic partisan competition is going to defeat [the March referendum] to begin with," Yates said.
The UN referendum plan has been roundly -- and repeatedly -- criticized by US officials, most recently by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who called the plan "provocative policy."
China has long described the referendum as a move toward a declaration of independence for Taiwan, and this language was picked up last year by US officials, primarily Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in an interview with Hong Kong's Phoenix TV in August.
The issue has soured US-Taiwan relations and it is felt that the vehemence of the US response stemmed from intense pressure from Beijing at a time when the Bush administration was in dire need of Chinese cooperation on a host of international issues.
Arguing that no controversial referendum can be adopted in Taiwan, Yates said: "If the [Chinese Nationalist Party] KMT as a party decides for its own reasons that it wants to boycott the referendum, it can't pass," Yates said.
"I think that any mathematician would say that the numbers do not favor passage on any referendum that is remotely sensitive," he said.
"And the high threshold [for passage of a referendum] in Taiwan makes those referenda almost doomed to failure from the start," he said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face