Taiwan’s pro-independence Chen snubs US: paper

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan, keen to shake off China’s claim
of sovereignty over the island, has snubbed a special U.S.
envoy, refusing to go back on a decision to scrap a
policy-making council on unification, newspapers reported on
Wednesday.

White House official Dennis Wilder secretly visited the
island on Tuesday last week to express U.S. concerns over
President Chen Shui-bian’s plan to scrap the National
Unification Council and 15-year-old guidelines on unification,
the papers said.

“A decision has been made and it is impossible to change
the decision,” Chen was quoted by the United Daily News as
telling Wilder.

Beijing has vowed to attack Taiwan if the island formally
declares statehood. The two sides split at the end of the
Chinese civil war in 1949 when the defeated Nationalists fled
into exile on the island.

Chen said last month that it was time to consider scrapping
the guidelines and the council, which was set up in 1990 and
was formerly the island’s top policy-making body on the
question of unification.

The council has been dormant since Chen took office in 2000
and ended five decades of Nationalist Party rule.

The China Times quoted unidentified sources as saying
Wilder warned Chen taking such a move would hurt mutual trust
between Taipei and Washington and upset cross-Strait ties. But
Wilder failed to convince Chen, it added.

Chen is widely expected to make a formal announcement on
the issue soon.

If Chen dissolved the council and the guidelines, he would
break a promise he made in his 2000 inauguration speech and
underscore Beijing’s suspicions that Chen is pushing for
independence.

China has condemned the plan and called Chen a
“troublemaker” and “saboteur” of peace and stability in Asia.

Washington has reiterated its opposition to moves that
could upset delicate ties between China and Taiwan after Chen’s
comments and urged the two sides to avoid misunderstandings.

Washington, which switched diplomatic recognition from
Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but remains the island’s main arms
supplier, reiterated its opposition to moves that could upset
delicate ties between China and Taiwan.