Category: Relations – Taiwanese-American

Wikileaks: Hillary Clinton Considered It “Clever” To Sell Out Taiwan For Cold, Hard Cash

From today's Taipei Times:

… a personal e-mail of former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton recently leaked by WikiLeaks suggested an adviser, Jake Sullivan, once shared with her an article titled “To save our economy, ditch Taiwan” by Paul Kane, a former international security research fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. [Emphasis added]

In the article, Kane suggested that US President Barack Obama could bolster US economic security by ending its military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan, in exchange for a write-off of US$1.14 trillion in US debt held by China.

“I saw [Paul Kane's proposal to sell out Taiwan] and thought it was so clever. Let’s discuss,” said Clinton… [Emphasis added]

The veracity of this is open to question, given Wikileaks' status as a likely Russian front group. It would therefore be helpful if America's supine press asked Secretary Clinton to confirm or deny whether it would have been the policy of her government to stab fellow democracies in the back.

Helpful, yes. But it's pretty difficult to picture this planeload of throne-sniffers ever asking the Haggard Queen any tough questions:

Postscript: Paul Kane's from the JFK School of Government? For real?

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty…Offer not applicable if one trillion dollar bribes are on the table." —John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Inaugural Address, probably

UPDATE: The original Wikileaks document. Not much different from the Taipei Times' account, though it does include Paul Kane's article in its entirety.

KMT Continues To Lie About The Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement

Yesterday:

With the implementation delay of the Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement, many countries have placed a hold on their current trade negotiations with Taiwan, said Economic Minister Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) yesterday.

Today, one of Taiwan's trade partners called Chang on his bullshit:

The current dispute over the cross-strait service trade agreement would not negatively affect the US’ position on Taiwan’s bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesman Mark Zimmer said.

Faleomavaega Dustup

By the looks of things, the folks at the Taipei Times don't need any of MY help, but a couple things in American congressman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega's letter to the editor caught my eye:

No name is attached to the editorial [which is critical of Mr. Faleomavaega], which suggests that either the author or your newspaper has its own political agenda.

A brief list of OTHER publications which print unattributed editorials:  the New York Times, the Washington Post, the National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and Taiwan's China Post.

Conspiracy theorists in congressmen's offices:  You may begin connecting the dots . . . now.

Faleomavaega also mentioned this:

. . . one might conclude that your newspaper stands in opposition to the will of your people [the Taiwanese], who voted in 2008 for a change in Administration and for a more honest government.  [emphasis added]

Heh.  The Taiwanese may indeed have voted for a government which they thought was more honest.  What they received however, was a president who is described (by his own media DEFENDERS) as a liar who would say anything to get elected.

By the by, I see from a recent post by Tim Maddog over at Taiwan Matters! that Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou's approval rating is currently floundering below the 30% mark, while his Chinese Nationalist Party colleagues in the legislature plumb the depths even further — below 20%.

Let's be generous, and say Taiwan's legislative and presidential branches enjoy 20 and 30% approval ratings, respectively.  So, what was that you were saying about, "the will of the people," Mr. Faleomavaega?

UPDATE (Apr 5/09):  In Faleomavaega's latest letter, he parses the meanings of "vital" and "cornerstone".  No, really.

Oh, and he also says that the REAL problem with Taiwan and China is that "sensible people refuse to get along".  Odd then, that he doesn't say the same about West Papua and Indonesia.

UPDATE #2:  Some of Faleomavaega's Chinese Nationalist Party buddies deliberately misquote him.  From KMTNews.net:

[Faleomavaega] said in his article that the Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) and the Taipei Times had vilified and insulted the US House of Representatives.

In the interest of the truth, here's what Mr. F. actually said in his first letter:

Since my proposed changes were supported by all members of the Subcommittee as well as the Chairman and Ranking member of the full committee prior to the markup, are these Members of Congress also no friend of Taiwan? I do not believe so.

I don't see Faleomavaega accusing the Taipei Times of "vilifying and insulting" the U.S. House of Representatives.  What he DOES do is attempt to use reductio ad absurdum to negate the Times' argument that he's "no friend of Taiwan".

(At any rate, the Times points out that the reductio isn't terribly convincing: "Mr Faleomavaega’s claim that changes he made to the resolution had full backing from fellow committee members cannot be sustained in light of the reversal and, in substance, repudiation by committee members of the amendments on the floor of the House of Representatives . . .")

KMTNews.net also mentions this:

When granting an interview to CtiTV, Eni Faleomavaega said “FAPA and the Taipei Times have plotted to weaken the US’s “One China Policy” and instigate cross-Strait conflict, in the hope that the US would send troops to maintain peace. He emphasized that the TRA was not a platform for Taiwan independence, and that the US would not be tricked into supporting any such plots.

Plots?  A NEWSPAPER conspiring to start a WAR?  Is the good politician from American Samoa cracking up?  Or are his ideological soulmates in the KMT lying about him for their own political purposes?

Or is the answer a little bit of A, a little bit of B?

The Future Of American-Taiwanese Relations

Last Saturday's Taipei Times looked at the new Democratic congress and predicted it'll be tough sledding over the next four years with the Obama administration at the helm; Michael Turton on the other hand has reason to believe relations will continue roughly the same as they are now.

As for myself, I will approach the question from a different angle.  Without denying the importance of pro- or anti-Taiwan sentiment in the next administration and congress, the other side of the equation cannot be overlooked.  That is to say, will the administration of Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou make it easier for American politicians and State Department bureaucrats to support Taiwan, or more difficult?

Because Michael raises a good point when he says there won't be a single "Taiwan-policy czar" — there will in fact be many doing that — some more supportive of the country than others.  So what Taiwan does over the next four years ALSO matters, because negative developments in Taiwan will strengthen the hands of Taiwan's detractors versus its supporters.

Ask yourself this, then:  One or two years from now, will Taiwan's ranking on leading international democratic and good government indices be higher or lower?  For example, within the first five months of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency, disturbing reports surfaced that the Taiwanese government had begun interfering with the editorial freedom of Radio Taiwan International (the KMT government wanted RTI to quit being so critical of the KMT's newest best friend, the Communist Party of China).  As a result, members of the RTI board ended up quitting in protest. 

If this is any evidence of what the next year or two will bring, Taiwan's position on press freedom indices will decline.

The same goes for indices ranking freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest.  Last week, the Ma administration took the extraordinary measure of confiscating Taiwanese flags from Taiwanese who attempted to protest the arrival of a delegation from China.  Just yesterday, we learned that Taiwanese police under KMT direction had begun tailing political dissidents.  And tomorrow?  We await with dread.  Indeed, one official from the Ma administration ominously warned the opposition that they shouldn't take their free speech rights for granted.  So on this matter too, I predict a decline in Taiwan's international scores.

And what of Taiwan's position on lists evaluating judicial independence?  Leading members of Taiwan's opposition have now been jailed for corruption-related crimes — jailed incommunicado without charge, whilst prosecutors drag their feet on cases involving KMT politicians accused of similar crimes.*  But just this Wednesday, American and Dutch officials began to question the impartiality of the Taiwanese judicial system; a day later, even President Ma's former law school mentor at Harvard University wrote an op-ed column to express his own doubts on the matter.  What we see is that the KMT's politicization of the justice system IS being noticed overseas, though it may take some time before the criticism begins to mount.

Finally, I'll go a little out on a limb regarding Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.  I'd bet even money that 2 years from now, Taiwan's position on that list will be worse than it is today.  But even if it DOES hold its place on the CPI, Taiwan's reputation as a democratic nation will still take a hit.  Politicians will take note of its declining status on all the OTHER indices I've mentioned, and those friendly to Taiwan will be left on the defensive.

Which is why when relations between Taiwan and America begin to cool, I'm prepared to cut Obama some slack.  President Obama, President McCain — it doesn't matter — either one would be forced to display SOME kind of American displeasure in response to Ma's alarming initial steps towards authoritarianism.

* We've known since at least January of this year that KMT legislator
Diane Lee owes the government of Taiwan the equivalent of $3.29 MILLION
U.S. dollars due to government paychecks she illegally collected while
she was still an American citizen.  But the wheel of justice grinds
slowly . . . if you're a member of the ruling party, that is.

Lee Teng-hui On Taiwan’s Current Government

From Monday's Taipei Times:

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of incompetency, lashing out at his administration for failing to offer concrete measures to curb public apprehension over events such as the recent melamine contamination and the poor performance of the TAIEX.

Now, I've seen a few possible explanations for the governments' poor performance:

1)  President Ma Ying-jeou is attempting to create a precedent for a "Queen of England" presidency for Taiwan.  Unfortunately for him, he has no Taiwanese model for him to draw upon.

2)  The KMT has been out of power for 8 years, and its governing skills are out of practice.

Without disagreeing with point #1, I'd like to elaborate a little upon point #2.  While it's true that the KMT lost control over the executive for the last 8 years, it DID have effective working control over the legislative branch over the same time frame.  So how did it spend its time?  Did the KMT spend the last 8 years KEEPING ITS GOVERNING SKILLS SHARP by actually passing into law legislative proposals that would benefit Taiwan? 

Or did it DULL THAT EDGE by spending those 8 years engaged only in pointless, petty obstructionism? *

I've seen the China Post sneer at former President Chen Shui-bian's record, asking what it was that Chen accomplished over the last 8 years.  I can think of a few things**, but let me turn the question around.  What did the KMT-dominated LEGISLATURE accomplish in the last 8 years?  They had a majority, after all.  Their votes were law — Taiwanese presidents have no veto power.

Once more,  what legislative successes can KMT lawmakers boast about on THEIR resumes?  Hmm?  Anyone?  Anyone?  I'm waiting . . .

A former marathon winner comes out of a long retirement for a big race.  He thinks he's got a good chance to win again.  But does he?

Not if he's spent the last 8 years scarfing down doughnuts and grousing about how easy kids today have got it.  If he hasn't spent enough time in training, maintaining his skills, our runner's fans are in for a major disappointment.

*  Speaking of pointless, petty obstructionism, here's a case in point:

The Presidential Office is thankful that the US government sent an official notification on Friday to Congress on the sale of five major packages of weaponry to Taiwan, officials said yesterday, adding that the move signaled a new era of mutual trust between Taiwan and the US.

“The notification of the US government put an end to the turbulence of the past eight years and rebuilds mutual trust between the US and Taiwan,” Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chih (王郁琦) said yesterday.

Uh-uh — you don't get off that easy, Mr. Wang.  Your boss, President Ma Ying-jeou, spent TWO YEARS boycotting those arms packages when he was in opposition.  As KMT chairman, Ma blocked 'em 60 times in the legislature.  Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet . . .  Sixty times.  You can't pawn THAT off on the former president, buddy.

In the end, Ma relented on the special arms bill.  By that time however, America viewed him and the KMT as fundamentally untrustworthy.  And the U.S. put the weapons sale on hold.

And so it was that the KMT was reduced to begging — BEGGING! — for that which it had so casually boycotted and dismissed as unnecessary just a few months earlier:

The United States could see its credibility among Taiwanese at stake if it fails to approve a pending Taiwan arms procurement package . . .  [Taiwanese] Defense Minister Chen Chao-min said Monday.

Please, please, please, sell us these weapons.  'Cause if you don't, uh . . . you'll, you'll . . . look really bad.  Really, REALLY bad . . . The passive-aggressive approach — yeah, that's the ticket!

As for the credibility of the Ma Ying-jeou administration, we'll escape unscathed.  Why, we're a lean, mean, governin' machine.

With the 24% approval rating to prove it.

**  At the top of my head, Chen's accomplishments as president include the de-politicization of Taiwan's military, increased democritization (via a new referendum law) and his partially-successful attempts to de-normalize Taiwanese worship of former dictators Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo.

Set against that record are troubling charges of corruption and money-laundering.  Which if proven true, make his presidency a very mixed bag.

Drawing The Wrong Lessons From Georgia

Monday's Taiwan News featured an editorial (Taiwan is not Georgia) in which it discussed two articles, Georgia's Lessons for Taiwan (from the Far Eastern Economic Review) and From Georgia to Taiwan (from The Wall Street Journal Asia).  The Taiwan News sums up the themes of the two opinion pieces:

According to these two heavyweight articles, the commonality is that ambiguous messages of support sent by the Bush administration led [Georgian President Mikhail] Saakashvili and Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian to take U.S. protection for granted and to perceive Bush's support as equal to U.S. backing for their "pursuit" of independence regardless of possible confrontations between the U.S. and Russia or between the U.S. and the PRC in the case of Taiwan.

Or, to put it more bluntly, Taiwan over the past 8 years was provoking China just as Georgia provoked Russia; and so in the interests of preventing a similar Sino-Taiwanese conflict, the reduction of American support for Taiwan was wise and just and proper.

With this the Taiwan News took issue.  Admitting that Saakashvili unnecessarily provoked Russia, the editors forcefully denied that Taiwan had done the same to China:

What these pundits see as "provocative" were the moves made by Chen and the DPP government to deepen Taiwan's democracy for the sake of improving domestic governance, to foster a stronger sense of Taiwan national identity and citizenship, and to promote the participation of "Democratic Taiwan" in the world community.

In contrast to Saakashvili's invasion, Chen's actions were not aimed to "pursue" independence but to defend Taiwan's actually existing independence and democracy from the threat posed by an authoritarian power. Instead, it has been the PRC which has posed a clear and present military threat against both Taiwan and regional peace by engaging in a massive build-up of over 1,000 ballistic missiles and other offensive forces during the past 15 years and by relentless pushing to isolate Taiwan internationally and achieve annexation through intimidation combined with economic integration.

The only fly in the ointment is that everyone here is proceeding from false assumptions.  Jeffrey Bader and Douglas Paal from the Far Eastern Economic Review.  Richard Bush and Kenneth Lieberthal from the Wall Street Journal Asia.  And last but not least, the Taiwan News.

They're all mistaken because they completely misunderstand how the War of 8/8/08 began. And if someone misunderstands the origins of that war, then any "lessons" they draw and attempt to apply to Taiwan immediately become suspect.

From independent journalist Michael J. Totten:

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported [several weekends ago] in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.  [emphasis added]

[…]

“[On the] 3rd of August, [South Ossetian president Eduard] Kokoity announces women and children should leave [as a prelude to hostilities]. As it later turned out, he made all the civilians leave who were not fighting or did not have fighting capabilities. On the same day, irregulars – Ingush, Chechen, Ossetians, and Cossacks – start coming in and spreading out into the countryside but don't do anything. They just sit and wait. On the 6th of August the shelling intensifies from Ossetian positions. And for the first time since the war finished in 1992, they are using 120mm guns.”

"That was the formal start of the war . . .  Because of the peace treaty they had, nobody was allowed to have guns bigger than 80 mm."  [emphasis added]

[…]

"On the evening of the 7th, the Ossetians launch an all-out barrage focused on Georgian villages, not on Georgian positions . . . That evening, the [Georgian] president gets information that a large Russian column is on the move.  Later that evening, somebody sees those vehicles emerging from the Roki tunnel (into Georgia from Russia) . . . "

"The first thing [the Georgians] did . . . they tried to get through (South Ossetian capital) Tskhinvali, and that's when everybody says Saakashvili started the war.  [Except] it wasn't about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through the town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance."

Maybe the only lesson here is that Taiwan can't afford to lose the propaganda war as Georgia did.  Russia's Ossetian catspaws started the war with Georgia, but Georgia was the one saddled with the blame.    It was too psychologically challenging for the world to consider the alternative:  that the Russian empire was again on the march in the near abroad, and the West now had to strengthen its security arrangements.

So instead, Olympic viewers contented themselves with platitudes about not tugging on Superman's cape.  Then went back to watching lip-synching 6 year-olds and lots of pretty, fake, fireworks.

Postscript:  To be fair, Michael J. Totten does quote someone as saying Georgia "provoked" Russia by trying to join NATO.  Of course, other former Eastern-bloc countries are equally guilty of similar "provocations", including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states.

What Russia characterizes as provocations, I see as legitimate attempts by former satellite nations to break orbit from a tyrannical neighbor.

UPDATE (Dec 3/08):  Saakashvili makes his case at the Wall Street Journal.

Have You Ever Seen An Invisible Man?

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou during his recent trip to America: 

Ma was seen in public just once during his [16 hour] stopover, when he waved to a group of Taiwanese expatriates waiting for him outside the Westin Bonaventure.

Coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man . . .  

Invisible man wearing suit, tie, and sunglasses

Ma was advised to just stay cool, and hope nobody would notice him.

(Image from NewEnglandLady.blogspot.com)

UPDATE:  Heh.

i-1

KMT Puts American’s Life In Danger

Sending jackboots to rough somebody up is so 20th Century.  Much more "with-it" to cynically dupe thuggish supporters into serving as willing cats-paws:

Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chairwoman Therese Shaheen has revealed that she received a warning from US officials and police in Taiwan of potential physical danger to her while she was in Taiwan for the presidential election, possibly from a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) stalwart fearful that she would drop a bombshell about KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) that would swing the election in favor of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

The warning came after Taiwanese newspapers and television stations reported rumors that Shaheen would attend an election eve rally for Hsieh and disclose damaging information about the issue of Ma’s US green card, which had been a major campaign topic.

[…]

[Shaheen] cited KMT officials quoted in a China Post story and other news outlets calling the statements they expected her to make a “nightmare” similar to the assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on the eve of the 2004 elections.

Bravo, bravo.  Hesb Allah’s got nothin’ on today’s "mellower" KMT and its Ma-llah.  (And no doubt if Shaheen had been injured or murdered, the lovers of the truth at the China Post would have remained true to form by suggesting that this scheming foreigner must have STAGED the assault upon herself in order to win sympathy votes!)

But to be fair, Shaheen also reserved criticism for Taiwan’s main independence party:

“Frank Hsieh should have come out and made a strong statement that ‘We have not spoken to Ms Shaheen, there are no plans for her to speak at the rally, we have never talked to her about Mayor Ma’s green card,’” she said.

Hsieh probably did not “shelve” the story because deep green supporters “would have loved this to come true … because people hoped” Shaheen would be a white knight and save the DPP’s campaign, she said.

Chinese Deny American Vessels Shelter During Storm

On Saturday, Taiwanese papers reported that the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk was refused entry into Hong Kong at the last minute by Beijing authorities.*  Beijing’s still seething over the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington.

Today’s AP however**, featured a story detailing another incident which was of even greater concern to the U.S. Navy:

[Admiral Gary Roughead] said he was even more troubled by China’s refusal, several days before the Kitty Hawk incident, to let two U.S. Navy minesweepers enter Hong Kong harbor to escape an approaching storm and receive fuel. The minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, were instead refueled at sea and returned safely to their home port in Japan, he said.

"As someone who has been going to sea all my life, if there is one tenet that we observe it’s when somebody is in need you provide (assistance) and you sort it out later," the admiral said. "And that, to me, was more bothersome, so I look forward to having discussions with the PLA navy leadership," he said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army.

[Admiral Timothy] Keating made a similar point. He called the denial in the case of the minesweeping ships "a different kettle of fish for us – in some ways more disturbing, more perplexing" than the Kitty Hawk case because the Chinese action violated an unwritten international code for assisting ships in distress.  [emphasis added throughout]

Next time the American navy needs a safe port during a storm, it might want to consider Keelung or Kaohsiung, instead.  It’s, ah, entirely possible that Taiwan would provide it a more hospitable reception.

The Chinese want to send little messages?  Well, perhaps its time they learned that that’s something other people can do as well.

(Hat tip to The Tank.)

* In it’s coverage of the Kitty Hawk incident, Taiwan’s China Post couldn’t help emphasizing the anti-American angle, with the lurid front page headline, ‘World of Suzie Wong’ hurt by aborted visit.  ‘Cause like, isn’t it obvious that hookers losing their income is the most important part of the story?

** Or possibly yesterday’s AP.  Things get tricky when you’re dealing with the International Date Line…

UPDATE (Nov 30/07): Yesterday’s Taipei Times featured this story as well.

UPDATE (Dec 16/07):  Tardy in posting this update, but the View from Taiwan had some really excellent analysis of this:

Anyone who has observed China’s relations with the outside world for any length of time has seen this pattern again and again. In the midst of negotiations with the Vatican, it consecrates two bishops for the state Church. In the midst of negotiations over the Torch coming to Taiwan, it denies a visa to the representative of the city of Kaohsiung to discuss games held there in 2009. Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. Some months back the Chinese government shut down an expat magazine in China that was widely considered the most sympathetic and supportive expat rag in the nation. China gets the Olympics, and crackdowns on the internet, and journalists intensify, while state security arrests double. Catch the pattern?

Now Bejing has denied Kitty Hawk a berth in Hong Kong, thus abusing the one service in the US government that has consistently supported it, to the extent that the previous head of PACOM apparently instructed his underlings not to hold military exercises using Beijing as the imagined target. The one service that has consistently displayed an eagerness to form relationships with China. The one service that has imagined itself in partnership with China.

The fact is that in doing all these things, the Navy demonstrated that it had arrayed itself in the proper position of suppliant to the Dragon Throne. Just like those petitioners living in the petitioner’s village outside of Beijing, or the local peasant who comes before the mighty magistrate to ask for his benevolence. The Navy thinks it has a right to reciprocity, since it has given so much. But in China there are no rights that apply to one’s superiors — superiors give things out of benevolence, and in both receiving petitions and in handing out benevolence, the great demonstrate their greatness. (In addition to displays of benevolence, the Throne also demonstrates its greatness by abusing those who abase themselves before it. They should be grateful for Our Attention.) From this perspective, when the Navy petitioned China for openness, it validated the greatness of China, and presented itself as a suppliant for imperial benevolence. When it made offerings of information and access to the Throne, that is only right, for gift-making is the proper behavior of suppliants, and the Throne in its Benevolence accepts all gifts. Most regrettably, with its insistence on reciprocity, the Navy has defined itself as a collection of small children making wearisome demands on the Throne. If the Navy really understood its relationship to the greatness of the Dragon Throne, it would wait humbly for some display of benevolence, just like those petitioners in the petitioners village outside of Beijing.

Finally, my tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the U.S. Navy should have paid a visit to a Taiwanese port turned out to be not entirely off the mark – the Kitty Hawk steamed through the Taiwan Strait in response to being denied harbor privileges in Hong Kong.  Michael Turton has more on that here.

Beijing Says Jump

U.S. State Department says, "How high?"

President Chen Shui-bian showed up to give a speech in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, despite a ban on ranking Taiwanese officials from visiting the capital:

State Department guidelines implemented in 1979 ban Taiwan’s president and other senior officials from visiting Washington, as part of Washington’s "one China" policy. A 1994 law passed by Congress overrode those restrictions, but no administration has implemented the law’s provisions to allow Taiwan’s president
and other high-ranking officials to visit Washington.

Except, President Chen didn’t really SHOW UP show up.  Instead, he delivered his speech via teleconference to the National Press Club.  He was in Taipei the whole time.

In Taipei.  Didn’t set foot in America.

None of this pleased the State Department:

One prominent State Department official responsible for Taiwan policy…[charged] that Chen was "using teleconference technology to circumvent the ban on Taiwanese presidents coming to Washington," a Taipei Times source said.

Good Lord.  This isn’t Osama bin Laden sending instructions to a gang of Jihadis in a New Jersey mosque somewhere.  We’re talking about the popularly-elected head of a LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, giving a SPEECH to members of the press.

And the State Department objects to that.

The View from Taiwan had the best line on this, bar none:

What is the State Department going to do when the first 3-D tech comes out?

Dear Captain Picard:It has come to our attention that Chen Shui-bian has been appearing on the holodeck….

It’s often claimed that China will grow more open as it interacts more with democracies.  But the troubling response to Chen’s speech in this case highlights the possibility that the reverse may happen.  Perhaps in the end, it will be us whose values are corrupted by authoritarian China, instead.