President Chen's long trip to nowhere

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President Chen's long trip to nowhere
By Ting-I Tsai
TAIPEI - On a sunny afternoon on May 5, the aircraft carrying Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian finally landed at Chiang Kai-shek Airport, ending a 10-day global odyssey from Taipei to Abu Dhabi to Costa Rica then Amsterdam for a brief stop, after Chen refused Washington's offer to use Alaska as a refueling stop.
Despite Chen's and his administration's claims that the trip was meant to fight for Taiwan's diplomatic recognition, concerns about the damage it may have caused to US-Taiwan bilateral ties have been raised in both Taipei and Washington. Furthermore, an anti-Chen coalition made up of Washington, Beijing and Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang party has obviously been formed.
"I think that US-Taiwan ties have hit a new low. Improving the relationship is possible, but trust is not rebuilt overnight and requires a concerted effort," said Bonnie Glaser, senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Most of the countries that still officially recognize Taiwan as the Republic of China are in Latin America. To fly there from Taiwan usually requires a refueling stop in the United States. If relations are reasonably good, that stop may be in an important US city, with the president allowed to leave the aircraft to meet local supporters.
If relations are cool, that means a quick refueling job in some place like Anchorage, the president required to remain on board. So Washington's offer of Alaska was correctly interpreted in Taipei as a deliberate snub and was rejected.
"The whole trip was an acrobatic performance. If he meant to piss Washington off, he should have made a stopover in Iran or North Korea," said Antonio Chiang, former deputy secretary general of Taiwan's National Security Council. "Chen has tried very hard, but he didn't do Taiwan's diplomacy any good."
The official purpose of Chen's trip was to attend the inauguration ceremony of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Taiwan submitted its request for Chen's stopover shortly after Chinese President Hu Jintao left Washington. At the time Chen himself believed, based on hints from Washington, that a stopover would be allowed at San Francisco and maybe New York City. But the US shifted the transit site to Alaska just prior to his departure.
At a press conference in Costa Rica, Chen defended himself by arguing, "I'm not doing this for fun. I would rather take less time, but I need to be concerned with Taiwan's dignity." Neglecting urges to stop the steady decline in US-Taiwan bilateral ties, Chen chose to make a surprise visit to Libya followed by Indonesia on his return journey rather than transit in Alaska. A proposed stop in Lebanon, however, was not approved.
Interpreting the scenario's development, Michael Green, former senior director at the National Security Council for Asian Affairs and now senior adviser at the CSIS, said: "I think the senior people in Washington were nervous after President Chen's remarks on abolishing the National Unification Council and were being extra cautious for fear that President Chen might surprise them again on US soil."
Shortly after his Democratic Progressive Party suffered a severe defeat in local elections at the end of last year, Chen announced his decision to abolish the National Unification Council, an organization created in the early 1990s by the former Kuomintang government to promote unification with mainland China. Because he did so without consulting Washington, the Americans considered this a violation of his pledge not to push for Taiwan's de jure independence.
Washington worried that he was going back on the promise made in his first inauguration speech in 2000 not to declare independence, not to promote a referendum over independence, not to push for inclusion of the so-called "state-to-state" description in the constitution, nor change the national name to "The Republic of Taiwan".
Chen seemed to go back on that promise by pushing for Taiwan's first ever referendum at the end of 2003. Then came the fracas over the unification council. That left Washington concerned whether Chen would pull another is dramatic tactic, such as announcing a national title change, and doing it while on US soil.
"This is the concern - that President Chen believes he can continually play with issues that are that dramatic and get away with it," said a Washington-based observer, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.
Back in 2003, Chen was allowed to make a transit stop in New York City to receive a human-rights award. While there, he made several public statements amid the vehement objections of Beijing. The then chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, Therese Shaheen, declared that US President George W Bush was "the guardian angel" of Chen's trip, which provoked even more wrath from Beijing.
Chen's public approval rating has dropped to less than 20% in the past few months, in part because of his wife's suspected involvement in some financial scandals, so he also faces the cruel reality of becoming an irrelevant lame duck in the last two years of his presidency (which ends in 2008).
"Chen has initiated more and more offensive tactics to consolidate his party while he is weak," said Wu Yu-shan, director of the Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science. "But it has been obvious that Washington, Beijing, and Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang party have formed a coalition effectively preventing Chen from going too far."
Washington is bent on isolating Chen by ignoring him. It did not trouble to criticize Chen or Taiwan publicly during President Hu's visit but instead chose to snub Chen on his trip. At the same time it went out of its way to welcome Taiwanese opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou warmly last month.
In a hearing before a committee of the US Congress, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said: "We want to be supportive of Taiwan, while we're not encouraging those that try to move towards independence. Because let me be very clear: independence means war."
The secretary general of the Taiwanese Presidential Office, Mark Chen, is scheduled to visit Washington soon for discussions that may include future steps to make amends, according to Washington observers.
[I][B]Ting-I Tsai[/B] is a Taipei-based freelance writer.[/I]