Playing Footsie with the Butchers of Beijing. Our "conservative" President has "chang[ed] a longstanding policy in managing the diplomatically nuanced rivalry" between Communist China and Taiwan. Three times, Colin Powell, Bush's Secretary of State, said that the United States (that is, George W. Bush) favors "reunification" of Taiwan and mainland China!

Mr. Powell, speaking in two television interviews on Monday during a brief visit to Beijing, emphasized that Taiwan was not a sovereign nation and that the United States favored its "peaceful reunification" with China.

And then:

In a separate interview, with CNN, Mr. Powell also changed the diplomatic code used to discuss the outcome of any talks between the rival governments. "We want both sides not to take unilateral action that would prejudice an eventual outcome, a reunification that all parties are seeking," he said. * * *

In the past, American officials had not endorsed China's contention that the goal should be reunification, which China insists it will achieve "at any price," including war.

No, Mr. Powell, not "all parties" are seeking "reunification" if that means that democratic and capitalist Taiwan is merged into Communist and command-economy China. Indeed, there are some Taiwanese (some polls suggest quite a few, as a matter of fact) who would like Taiwan to become a State of our Union. It would make a splendid addition to the Nation.
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ABC News reported today, however:

Powell clarified his remarks in a TV interview Wednesday with the U.S. television channel CNBC. He said the goal "really is to have a peaceful resolution of the problem" between Taiwan and China[.]

What "resolution" does Mr. Powell, and his President, foresee if Taiwan is not sovereign and must make no moves to establish independence? Is the Bush Administration "flip-flopping" on Taiwan? Or is it just mealy-mouthing its way out of the embarrassment of making plain that it is an enemy of Taiwan independence?
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Last Friday I warned Taiwan statehood advocates who said they felt "much more comfortable" with Bush than Kerry, that Bush would sell Taiwan out in a minute to preserve the huge (but catastrophically unprofitable) trade with Communist China. David Chou, head of the Taiwan statehood movement, sent our email group today the Joseph Kahn article cited first above. It's gratifying to see my warning so quickly borne out.
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What is not gratifying is the stance of the gutless and unprincipled Bush Administration in cozying up to the Butchers of Beijing by selling out the people of Taiwan and giving Communist China implicit permission to move to annex Taiwan "peacefully", without saying what the Bush Administration would do if China decided that peaceful reunification would take too long. Anyone who thinks Bush would do a thing to stop an invasion of Taiwan by the Butchers of Beijing is a fool.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:47 PM