Taiwanese leader sees White House ‘tilt’ toward Beijing

U.S. opposition to two planned referendums has fed fears of a “perceived tilt” by the Bush administration toward mainland China, the chairman of Taiwan’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee said in an interview yesterday.

Parris H. Chang, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan and a member of Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said the concerns are widespread among government officials and lawmakers, despite repeated assurances from Washington that there has been no change in policy toward the Republic of China.

“Our government does not want to offend our greatest ally,” he said, “but the concern is rising that there is a perceived tilt toward China. For the United States to oppose a democratic voter referendum because it may displease China, that seems to negate our own statehood.”

The fears are remarkable given the early record of the Bush administration, which took a strongly pro-Taiwan stance in its long-standing dispute with China over the island’s ultimate political status.

The United States has approved a major new arms sale to Taipei and eased travel restrictions on Taiwanese senior leaders visiting the United States. In April 2001, Mr. Bush infuriated Beijing by asserting the United States was prepared to do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan, going far beyond the more ambiguous formulations preferred by previous administrations.

But the need for Chinese cooperation in the post-September 11 war on terrorism and U.S. efforts to cultivate a new generation of Chinese leadership under Premier Hu Jintao has caused deep unease in Taiwan, said Mr. Chang, who heads a parliamentary delegation that is stressing these concerns to Bush administration officials this week.

“We certainly understand the United States is a great power with global interests and we are a small nation, but the subtle changes we see in the American line are causing great uneasiness,” he said.

Mr. Chen’s plans to hold two nationwide polls in March — one on nuclear power and a second on applying for observer status in the World Health Organization — sparked a rare public rift with Washington.

Taiwanese newspapers reported over the weekend that Douglas Paal, director of the American Institute of Taiwan and the de facto U.S. ambassador to Taipei, had personally pressed Mr. Chen, president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), not to hold the votes.

Although the issues involved are nonpolitical, Beijing has strenuously objected to the referendums, fearing they will prove a dry run for an eventual national vote on independence, which the DPP once advocated.

State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker would not confirm the Paal-Chen meeting, but signaled that the United States, while supporting democracy in Taiwan, did not support the referendum idea.

Both Taiwan and China should “refrain from actions or statements that increase tension across the [Taiwan] Strait or make dialogue more difficult to achieve,” Mr. Reeker said. “That certainly has been our position for some time.”

Mr. Chen has vowed to press ahead with the nationwide votes, despite U.S. unhappiness.

“Direct democratic rights, including referendums, are part of our fundamental human rights,” he told voters in the southern city of Kaohsiung over the weekend. “I believe those rights could never be opposed or stripped by any individual, government or country.”

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