China blunt on U.S.-Taiwan stance

[DuctapeFatwa]

In an unusually blunt message, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao blasted Therese Shaheen, Chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), for saying Washington had never said it "opposes Taiwan independence."

The AIT is a semi-official wing of the U.S. diplomatic service that handles U.S.-Taiwan relations given the lack of formal ties between the two.

Liu quoted Shaheen as insisting what Washington had said was only that it "does not support Taiwan independence" -- and that "not supporting Taiwan independence does not equate to opposing Taiwan independence."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry asserted that on numerous occasions, American leaders told Chinese officials Washington was "opposed to Taiwan independence."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/16/taiwan.shaheen/index.html

[JoeMemphis]

1. Of course Shrubya opposes Taiwan independence ...

If the U.S. ever quit groveling to China and economic ties were cut, sweatshops would close down and Wal-Mart's shelves would be empty.

Where would Republicans shop for their "free trade" thurd-wurld junk? Seems that most Rethugs would rather shop at Wal-Mart and support Chinese communism instead of hard-working Americans at home.

[madddog]

8. I hate to bring this up...

but could you explain to me how current Bush policy towards Taiwan/China is any different than President Clinton's?

[teryang]

2. They want it both ways

Our regime wants slave labor for Walmart and huge defense exports to Taiwan.

[Merlin]

3. We ALL want it both ways.

We want to criticize Dems and Repugs for "coddling" China and we want to see her as a big, bad economic menace (which she is not), then we want to go to WallMart or KMart or virtually any other store in the US and buy Chinese made merchandise at a fraction of what it would have cost if made in the USA. If you think Republicans are the only ones buying foreign made goods at low prices, you're just kidding yourself.

We should push hard to prevent prison-made goods from being imported, to persuade China to permit collective bargaining, and to encourge her to adopt more humane child labor and work safety standards. We should do that with all our trading partners.

I believe the Chinese are blowing smoke over Taiwan. Chen will be re-elected, will have a new constitution and will succeed in getting the island renamed to "Taiwan" instead of its now official name "Republic of China." These moves, coupled with the simultaneous growing economic bonds between the two will force China to accept the fact that Taiwan will forever remain separate and effectively independent, so long as China remains a totalitarian state.

[Beaker]

4. China IS a big bad economic menace-

and the people in power in this country has allowed China to get a death-grip on our short & curlies. A chinese switch in their holdings from dollars to euros would be one way totally fuck us...another would be an embargo on shipping goods to the U.S....there are a lot of ways.

[mumon]

6. Our government colluded in this...

China's doing just what's in their interest to increase their presence on the world stage- just like we did after WWII.

Moreover, it's actually getting worse in China- turns out there's a glut of factories right now, and an effective deflation over there in terms of manufacturing capacity.

[Merlin]

10. Oh, please! What right wing tabloids have you been reading?

We are no more in China's hands than they are in ours.

China is following its own self interest, and rather astutely at that.

Why would China switch from dollars to euros? It would destabilize the world economy and put her at a financial disadvantage in relations with her principal trading partner, the US.

Embargoing the shipment of goods to the US??? That would harm...WHO... exactly? It's preposterous. If China ceased all exports to the US tomorrow, it would take the rest of the world about a week to ramp up to take advantage of such an implausible economic mistake. Meanwhile, China's economy would collapse. Her already serious unemployment problem would explode, and the problem of governing an already unwieldy assembleage of cultures would grow exponentially.

We need to be realistic in discussing these issues. Hyperbole doesn't help.

[teryang]

7. It is unlikely that Taiwan will

......forever remain independent. Especially since reunification of Korea is in the offing. It is the status quo in east asia which is unlikely to remain. A timetable for repatriation of Taiwan, would be the logical way to reunify the Korea peninsula without Chinese military intervention. One is held hostage to the other. Neither can last. In spite of the growing power of China and South Korea, nothing has changed in East Asia since 1953. This is about as improbable as it gets.

Your other points are well taken.

[Merlin]

9. Not forever, perhaps. But never under Chinese tyranny.

I understand and agree with all you are saying. But I do not believe the trend among the Taiwan citizenry is in the direction of unification. They have seen what happens to the promise of "One nation, two systems."

The key question, imo, is whether China herself will evolve into a more democratic system. I believe it will, though I think it will take another century. At that point, a form of "unification" may be possible.

Until then, I do not believe the US--China's principal trading partner--will permit any form of hegemony over Taiwan. They would be sacrificing their economy for a tidbit. That equation is likely to remain in force for the next several decades.

[UpInArms]

5. one name - John Bolton -

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=46

Some scandals find traction in Washington, others fizzle. The Taiwangate affair-- which involves a $100 million secret Taiwan government slush fund that financed intelligence, propaganda, and influence activities within the United States and elsewhere--seems to be in the latter category at the moment. The beneficiaries of the lack of attention include three prominent Bush appointees at the State Department who, before joining the Bush administration, received money from this account. And one of these officials, John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, submitted pro-Taiwan testimony to Congress in the 1990s without revealing he was a paid consultant to Taiwan. His work for Taiwan, it turns out, was financed by this slush fund.

On April 2, The Nation reported that news stories out of Asia, citing leaked classified documents, showed that former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui had established an illegal covert fund when he was in office and that several million dollars from it apparently were used to pay for a pro-Taiwan lobbying campaign in Washington mounted by Cassidy and Associates, a powerful lobbying firm. The clandestine account, according to the Asian media reports, underwrote the travels of Carl Ford, Jr., a former senior CIA analyst who was a consultant to the Cassidy and Associates effort. The Pacific Forum, the Honolulu-based armed of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also received money--perhaps $100,000-- from the slush fund, when James Kelly, a past National Security Council officer, headed the Forum. Forty-thousand dollars of that money, CSIS confirmed, was sent to Harvard to cover the costs of a fellowship for a former Japanese defense official. In May 2001, Bush appointed Ford to be assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, and Kelly to be assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. (For more details, see the "Capital Games" dispatch preceding this one, "Taiwangate?--Bush Appointees Linked to Secret Slush Funds.")

On April 5, The Washington Post published a similar story, reporting that Taiwanese officials said the fund had paid $30,000 to John Bolton for research papers he wrote in the mid-1990s on how Taiwan could win readmission into the United Nations.