Taiwan learning that their 'friend' is as untrustworthy as their threatening neighbour.
United States of "we want democracy and justice in the world" America has predictably abandoned Taiwan to side with China. I hear the clucking of a chicken. "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" Well, the US certainly is.
iht.com/articles/2007/12/22/america/21cnddiplo.php ('International Herald Tribune')
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>China and Taiwan draw fire from Washington</b>
By Thom Shanker and Helene Cooper Published: December 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: Senior Bush administration officials on Friday sharply criticized both China and Taiwan for unnecessarily inflaming tensions between each other and with the United States.
Secretary of State <b>Condoleezza Rice issued an unusually sharp rebuke to the Taiwanese government, taking the rare step of pointedly calling a planned referendum on United Nations membership for Taiwan "provocative."</b>
<b>And at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed as "specious" an explanation from China that it canceled and refused port visits by American warships because Gates had not told officials in Beijing of planned arms sales to Taiwan.</b>
During a State Department news conference Rice said that the United States would "monitor closely" the Taiwan referendum issue.
<b>"We think that Taiwan's referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name 'Taiwan' is a provocative policy," Rice said. "It unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait</b>, and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage."
Rice's sharp comments, one of a handful of issues that she raised without being prompted by the reporters she spoke to, were meant to send a signal to both China and Taiwan. <b>While Rice reiterated the Bush administration line â that the United States "opposes any threat to use force and any unilateral move by either side to change the status quo" â she placed the United States solidly on the side of China on the issue of Taiwan's referendum. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which should ultimately be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.</b>
Administration officials said that there was increased frustration with Taiwanese president Chen Shui-Bian this year. Beijing has criticized Taiwan's referendum as a step toward formal independence; the attempt at a name change is important because Taiwan's formal name right now â the Republic of China â is taken by Beijing as connoting fealty to the one-China idea.
Even if Taiwan's bid got out of the United Nations, it would likely fail in the Security Council anyway since China would probably block it with its veto.
At the Pentagon, Gates said he explicitly told the Chinese leadership during his visit to Beijing last month that arms sales to Taiwan were consistent with law and would be continued for as long as China built up its military along the strait.
Referring to his talks with the Chinese leadership in Beijing on Nov. 5 and 6, Gates said that "in those conversations, they raised at various levels our arms sales to Taiwan, and I was very explicit that our arms sales were consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act and the joint statement."
The comments were his most explicit comments on Beijing's last-minute cancellation of a Thanksgiving visit to Hong Kong by the carrier Kitty Hawk and its refusal to allow two American minesweepers to enter Hong Kong harbor for shelter during a Pacific storm.
The refusal of assistance to the two minesweepers seeking fuel and a safe port was viewed by United States Navy officers as a violation of centuries of custom and law. Chinese officials said the decisions were reached because Gates had not informed them of arms sales to Taiwan that were announced in Washington shortly after the defense secretary's return from Asia.
But Gates told a Pentagon news conference that he had told the Chinese "that as long as they continued to build up their forces on their side of the Taiwan Strait, we would continue to give Taiwan the resources necessary to defend itself. So I think that to a certain extent, I find that argument a little specious."
At the same time, Gates said that despite Beijing's military modernization efforts, he did not consider China a adversary and called for better communications between the two nations.
"I don't consider China an enemy," Gates said, "and I think there are opportunities for continued cooperation in a number of areas."
Gates said the refusal of entry privileges to Hong Kong for American warships, along with China's test of an anti-satellite weapon, are possibly indications of "a disconnect within the Chinese government."
On the anti-satellite test, he said, "the foreign ministry didn't seem to understand or know what had happened and there appeared to be some confusion." Likewise, he said, the Chinese military in forbidding the port visits "may have made a decision that was not communicated to the political side of the government."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Taiwan is not a part of China.
Taiwan is where the Chinese royalists escaped to after the communists brutally won and took over China. Taiwan's character is what China's might have been had the latter not become christocommunist. It continues to be the underlying natural character of China (and will be as long as it remains unconverted to christianism) though this has been obscured/kept stifled by communism for many decades.
United States of "we want democracy and justice in the world" America has predictably abandoned Taiwan to side with China. I hear the clucking of a chicken. "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" Well, the US certainly is.
iht.com/articles/2007/12/22/america/21cnddiplo.php ('International Herald Tribune')
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>China and Taiwan draw fire from Washington</b>
By Thom Shanker and Helene Cooper Published: December 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: Senior Bush administration officials on Friday sharply criticized both China and Taiwan for unnecessarily inflaming tensions between each other and with the United States.
Secretary of State <b>Condoleezza Rice issued an unusually sharp rebuke to the Taiwanese government, taking the rare step of pointedly calling a planned referendum on United Nations membership for Taiwan "provocative."</b>
<b>And at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed as "specious" an explanation from China that it canceled and refused port visits by American warships because Gates had not told officials in Beijing of planned arms sales to Taiwan.</b>
During a State Department news conference Rice said that the United States would "monitor closely" the Taiwan referendum issue.
<b>"We think that Taiwan's referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name 'Taiwan' is a provocative policy," Rice said. "It unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait</b>, and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage."
Rice's sharp comments, one of a handful of issues that she raised without being prompted by the reporters she spoke to, were meant to send a signal to both China and Taiwan. <b>While Rice reiterated the Bush administration line â that the United States "opposes any threat to use force and any unilateral move by either side to change the status quo" â she placed the United States solidly on the side of China on the issue of Taiwan's referendum. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which should ultimately be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.</b>
Administration officials said that there was increased frustration with Taiwanese president Chen Shui-Bian this year. Beijing has criticized Taiwan's referendum as a step toward formal independence; the attempt at a name change is important because Taiwan's formal name right now â the Republic of China â is taken by Beijing as connoting fealty to the one-China idea.
Even if Taiwan's bid got out of the United Nations, it would likely fail in the Security Council anyway since China would probably block it with its veto.
At the Pentagon, Gates said he explicitly told the Chinese leadership during his visit to Beijing last month that arms sales to Taiwan were consistent with law and would be continued for as long as China built up its military along the strait.
Referring to his talks with the Chinese leadership in Beijing on Nov. 5 and 6, Gates said that "in those conversations, they raised at various levels our arms sales to Taiwan, and I was very explicit that our arms sales were consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act and the joint statement."
The comments were his most explicit comments on Beijing's last-minute cancellation of a Thanksgiving visit to Hong Kong by the carrier Kitty Hawk and its refusal to allow two American minesweepers to enter Hong Kong harbor for shelter during a Pacific storm.
The refusal of assistance to the two minesweepers seeking fuel and a safe port was viewed by United States Navy officers as a violation of centuries of custom and law. Chinese officials said the decisions were reached because Gates had not informed them of arms sales to Taiwan that were announced in Washington shortly after the defense secretary's return from Asia.
But Gates told a Pentagon news conference that he had told the Chinese "that as long as they continued to build up their forces on their side of the Taiwan Strait, we would continue to give Taiwan the resources necessary to defend itself. So I think that to a certain extent, I find that argument a little specious."
At the same time, Gates said that despite Beijing's military modernization efforts, he did not consider China a adversary and called for better communications between the two nations.
"I don't consider China an enemy," Gates said, "and I think there are opportunities for continued cooperation in a number of areas."
Gates said the refusal of entry privileges to Hong Kong for American warships, along with China's test of an anti-satellite weapon, are possibly indications of "a disconnect within the Chinese government."
On the anti-satellite test, he said, "the foreign ministry didn't seem to understand or know what had happened and there appeared to be some confusion." Likewise, he said, the Chinese military in forbidding the port visits "may have made a decision that was not communicated to the political side of the government."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Taiwan is not a part of China.
Taiwan is where the Chinese royalists escaped to after the communists brutally won and took over China. Taiwan's character is what China's might have been had the latter not become christocommunist. It continues to be the underlying natural character of China (and will be as long as it remains unconverted to christianism) though this has been obscured/kept stifled by communism for many decades.