MikeLigalig.com

By PETER ENAV, Associated Press Writer
52 minutes ago
 


HSINCHU, Taiwan - With a deafening roar, eight Mirage fighter jets shoot upward from the darkened runway at Taiwan's Hsinchu Air Force Base, armed with a deadly array of missiles and a mission to knock out incoming Chinese warplanes.

It's only a simulation, of course, but the tensions are always real, and lately have ratcheted up over an ambitious political gambit by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian that has rattled both China and the U.S., Taiwan's closest ally.

At issue is Chen's plan for a public referendum next year on Taiwan seeking entry to the United Nations. Beijing views the referendum as a direct challenge to its claim that Taiwan is part of China.

No one expects war anytime soon, but Chen's move worries U.S. officials enough that they have publicly criticized it. The United States is wary of getting dragged into a scrap between a democratic friend and its giant neighbor across the Taiwan Straits.

Chen's initiative is a "mistake," Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said last month. Seeming to support China's view, he said the referendum would be "a step towards ... a declaration of independence of Taiwan," and urged Taiwanese authorities to "behave in a responsible manner."

China hardly wants war either. That would cast a giant shadow over its economic leap forward and next summer's Beijing Olympics. But ignoring Chen would give new impetus to Taiwanese independence — a prospect Beijing abhors.

The controversy boils down to a name.

Taiwan has applied for U.N. membership before — more than a dozen times since it was expelled from the world body in 1971 when the China seat was transferred to Beijing. But except for a failed attempt this year, it always did so under its official name — the Republic of China.

That's what Gen. Chiang Kai-shek called the island when he and his Nationalist forces fled there in 1949 as Mao Zedong's Communists took control of China.

Mao and Chiang hated each other, but they agreed on one thing: There could only be one China. Chiang was no less vehement than the Communists in resisting any notion of an independent Taiwan. Many of those who laid the groundwork for Chen's Democratic Progressive Party once served in prison for advocating independence.

Now Chen wants the electorate's permission to apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan — a crucial difference because it implies a rejection of the "one China" concept.

The referendum would ask whether the territory should apply for U.N. membership as "Taiwan." The Mainland Affairs Council, which implements Taiwan's China policies, published a poll in August putting support at more than 70 percent.

Any name would be symbolic. The U.N. Security Council would have to approve Taiwan's membership, and China has a veto.

The "aim is to provoke conflicts from the two sides, cheat Taiwanese people to get more votes and realize plans of Taiwan independence," said Yang Yi, a spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office.

Yang's reference to votes reflects a widespread Taiwanese perception that Chen, although a longtime supporter of independence, is holding the referendum mainly because he thinks it's a huge vote-getter.

The referendum is expected to take place during elections to choose Chen's successor in March, and it puts the main opposition Nationalist Party in a bind — to oppose the measure and lose credibility, or support it and appear to be a DPP clone.

For the time being, Nationalist presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou has adopted a middle ground, supporting U.N. membership, but as the Republic of China.

Taiwan specialist Shelley Rigger of Davidson College in North Carolina said U.S. officials aren't panicked, but they are concerned. She says many of them feel Chen cares more about the election than about preserving his relationship with the United States.

"The worry is that he will do things to rally his hard-line base — including deliberately provoking Beijing," Rigger said in an e-mail interview. "I also think there is growing concern that Chen is trying to box in his successor, to force the next president to continue his policies."



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