Page 2 of 2 Taiwan's UN bid risks
allies' ire By Ting-I Tsai
June
18 while receiving academics from the Heritage
Foundation, a conservative Washington-based
think-tank friendly to Taiwan. He had hinted at
the idea on several occasions in previous months.
US State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack responded soon after. "The United States
opposes any initiative that appears designed to
change Taiwan's status unilaterally. This would
include
a referendum on whether to apply to the United
Nations under the name 'Taiwan'," he said on June
19.
Richard Bush, director of the
Brookings Institution's Center for Northeast Asian
Policy Studies and former chairman of the American
Institute in Taiwan, was unsure whether the
implicit criticism of Chen would damage the DPP in
the coming months. But he was sure of one thing.
"The United States has signaled it will not be
silent when it believes its security interests -
and Taiwan's - are at stake," Bush asserted.
Washington's response may have been
difficult for most Taiwanese to swallow, but it
was not simply a reflexive reaction to Chen’s
pronouncement.
At the end of January,
senior officials at the US State Department
explicitly laid down "red lines" that Taiwan or
Chen was not supposed to cross. These included
holding referendums as vehicles for Taiwan's
constitutional change and on the use of the name
"Taiwan" to try to gain UN membership. The US said
it would also frown on any move by Chen that
appeared to endorse the "Second Republic"
constitution draft.
It was only after
months of back-channel communications failed to
resolve differences on these issues that Chen
formally made his referendum proposal and the US
issued its strong response.
Analysts in
Washington with long ties to Taiwan are frustrated
by Taipei's blind spot when it comes to the
possibly severe damage to US ties caused by the
referendum proposal. But there are no signs
indicating that the DPP administration or Chen
will back off, as major politicians of the party
have concluded that Washington is leaning toward
Beijing to pursue its own interests.
On
the other hand, Washington's clear opposition has
enabled Beijing to remain calm over Taiwan's UN
bid, even though in 2005 it went to great lengths
to prepare for an eventual bid by Taiwan for de
jure independence by repeatedly sending its senior
Taiwan affairs officials to Washington to make
complaints about Chen and Taiwan.
Wu
Kuozhen, deputy chairman of the mainland's Taiwan
Democratic Self-Government League, seemed
unperturbed by the UN bid. "Washington opposes it.
Where can this go?" he said.
What did
upset Beijing was the decision by the opposition
Kuomintang (KMT) that it would initiate a similar
referendum on a UN bid.
Xu Bodong,
director of the Taiwan Institute of Beijing Union
University, argued that the KMT is repeating the
mistake it made in 2003 when the DPP initiated the
first ever referendum in Taiwan while the KMT
stood idly by, demonstrating its inability to
dominate the agenda in political campaigns.
Beijing may also be comforted by history.
In 1999, shortly after then-Taiwanese president
Lee Teng-hui introduced his "state to state"
thesis, the United States, the United Kingdom and
France all broke their habitual silence by
repeating their "one China" policy at the UN
Security Council in opposition to Taiwan's UN
membership bid that year.
Chien-jen Chen,
Taiwan's former chief representative to the United
States who was involved in sorting out problems
caused by the island's first controversial
referendum, said he believes that Taiwan and the
US should be able to find a solution for the
current impasse, as the two have similar
interests. Taiwan, however, has no choice but to
see that the UN bid is nothing but an unrealistic
illusion in the current international political
environment, the former representative said.
"What Taiwan should do is participate in
as many international organizations as it can that
don't demand statehood," he said, adding that
Taipei "should consider what is in the best
interests of the people".
Ting-I
Tsai is a freelance journalist based in
Taipei.
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