Fri, Mar 03, 2006 page3

• NUC spat isn't over yet, say local political analysts

  BALANCING ACT One observer said that the careful wording of the president's announcement had resulted in ambiguity and left room for all parties to maneuver

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  Although the uproar over the National Unification Council (NUC) seems to have died down, the repercussions continue to be felt, local political observers say.

  President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Tuesday signed a document ordering that the NUC would "cease to function" and that the Guidelines for National Unification would "cease to apply."

  The US government, however, interpreted Chen's decision as amounting to "freezing" the unification mechanism, prompting another round of debate over whether the US had misunderstood Chen's words. Some have even speculated that Chen might have obtained something in return for bowing to US pressure.

  The director of the Taipei-based Institute for National Policy Research, Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), said the careful choice of words resulted in ambiguity and left room for all parties, including China, to maneuver.

  "For us, the unification council and guidelines have come to an end. For the US government, they are frozen, and for Beijing, they are not abolished," Lo said. "What's more important is that the US government believes Chen's commitment to the pledges he made in his first inaugural address and that he will not unilaterally alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait."

  Lo said that although he did not think the US would adopt a tougher stance against China in the future, it had urged Beijing to open a meaningful dialogue with the elected leadership in Taiwan, because it saw this as the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution.

  "[The US] is only averse to cross-strait developments if Beijing continues to ignore or marginalize Chen in the belief that things will get better if they continue to do so," Lo said. "We hope to see the US government play a more proactive role in cross-strait relations and persuade, or even pressure, Beijing to talk with the Chen administration."

  Ruan Ming (阮銘), an adviser at the Taiwan Research Institute's strategic and international studies department, said that the US government had misunderstood Chen's words and overreacted.

  "The US government doesn't seem to realize that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is that Taiwan is an independent sovereign state and that to unify Taiwan with China will be changing the `status quo,'" Ruan said. "I don't know why such a simple domestic affair becomes so complicated."

  Ruan said that the US would be wise to separate US-Taiwan relations from those with China.

  Chen Ming-tung (陳明通), a professor of political science at National Taiwan University and former Mainland Affairs Council vice chairman, said it was meaningless to debate the wording because what really mattered was that Taiwan had managed to negate China's cross-strait advantage.

  Chen Ming-tung said that the US had finally realized it had failed to do anything substantial to prevent the cross-strait situation from tilting in China's favor after Beijing passed its "Anti-Secession" Law.

  "What the US government wanted us to do was to behave like a `good little boy' and let it take care of the rest," he said. "The problem is, it didn't take care of this matter, so it cannot blame us for taking things into our own hands."

  Despite speculation that the time is ripe for the US and Beijing to sign a fourth communique to pre-empt any future pro-independence initiative, political observers said this was highly improbable.

  Lo said that the US government had already stated that its cross-strait policy remains unchanged, based on the three US-Taiwan communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act. Any major changes to the policy would have to correspond with US interests.

  "The question is: Will the US get anything out of it if it signs the fourth communique with China?" Chen Ming-tung asked.

  He dismissed speculation about a fourth communique as "impossible," saying that Beijing was mainly responsible for the NUC controversy.
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