Olympic torch may stall at Taiwan strait
China's plan to run the Olympic torch through Taiwan, announced in April, met with a quick refusal.
from the June 20, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
That way, Taiwan could claim that it constituted the last stop on the international leg of the torch's 19-week odyssey, defending its claim to be an independent, sovereign nation, and Beijing could regard it as the first stop in the domestic relay, satisfying its position that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China.
At the last minute, however, Taiwan – currently led by the pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian – backed away from this compromise.
"We considered the ambiguity strategy, but felt it was no good," explains Dr. Chen, the president's top adviser on relations with the mainland. "We decided to take a clear strategy."
That decision was consistent with President Chen's efforts over the past seven years to distance Taiwan from mainland China in symbolic ways, most recently by changing the name of the island's postal service from "China Post" to "Taiwan Post." Now Chen is promoting a referendum on whether the government should seek United Nations membership as Taiwan, having lost its seat to the People's Republic in 1971.
It also matches a pattern whereby Chen has sought to ratchet up tensions with the mainland, rallying his political supporters, whenever he has found himself in domestic difficulties. Currently his wife is under indictment for corruption, as are two top aides and two cabinet ministers. Prosecutors say they have enough evidence to indict the president, too, but that he is protected from charges by presidential immunity.
The government has also sought to foster a Taiwanese identity separate from its citizens' Chinese identity, defying the "one China" policy on which US policy towards the region is based and prompting repeated diplomatic warnings from Washington not to provoke Beijing.
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