Taiwan’s Chen seen in diplomatic victory over China

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian returns
home from a Latin American visit on Friday after surprise stops
in Libya and Indonesia that gave him a modest diplomatic
victory over China but drew words of caution from the United
States.

As Chen criss-crossed the globe, U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State Robert Zoellick told a congressional hearing this week
that Taiwan “will keeping hitting into a wall” if it kept
testing the “one China” policy under which Washington switched
diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

“We want to be supportive of Taiwan while we’re not
encouraging those that try to move toward independence,” said
the State Department’s number two diplomat who is charge of a
new U.S. strategic dialogue with China.

“Because let me be very clear: independence means war,”
said Zoellick, who defended the administration against
criticism by U.S. lawmakers for treating Chen in a
“disgraceful” way by offering to let his plane refuel in remote
Alaska or Hawaii while on his way to and from Latin America
instead of stopping over in New York which he had previously
done.

China, which has claimed Taiwan as its own since their
split in 1949 when Communists defeated the Nationalists in a
civil war, has vowed to attack the self-ruled democratic island
if it formally declares independence.

China is opposed to countries with which it has diplomatic
relations — such as Libya and Indonesia — playing host to
Chen as part of a campaign to isolate Taiwan, which still
styles itself as the Republic of China.

Chen turned down the U.S. stopover offer and accused China
of pressuring the United States but had no harsh words for
Taiwan’s main arms supplier and major trading partner.

He kept his transit destinations a secret until his
arrivals to avoid interference from China, which was strongly
dissatisfied with Libya and warned of a negative impact to
bilateral ties.

It has made no comment on the Indonesia stopover as yet.

Chen had originally been scheduled to fly home via Abu
Dhabi.

Chen’s nine-day visit took him to Paraguay and Costa Rica.
His stopovers in Libya, where he met family members of leader
Muammar Gaddafi, and on the Indonesian island of Batam on his
way home were hailed by some newspapers as a diplomatic
victory.

The top U.S. envoy in Taiwan played down any impact on
bilateral relations, saying Washington was looking to the
future.

“We have had our disagreements, as close friends inevitably
do. President Chen’s recent trip to Latin America in which he
chose not to transit the U.S. is a case in point,” Stephen
Young, director of the American Institute in Taiwan said at a
business association luncheon earlier in the week.

“But such issues can never be allowed to distract us from
our enduring common interests.”

(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim in TAIPEI and
Paul Eckert in Washington)