Stuck in the middle

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Taiwanese President Chen Shui-Bian is nothing if not determined. On the receiving end of a one-two punch from superpowers China and the U.S. last week, the 52-year-old President stood his ground, refusing to back away from a controversial plan to hold a referendum next year to demand that China dismantle almost 500 missiles it has aimed at Taiwan. "The people of Taiwan have the right to say loudly, 'We are against the missiles, we want democracy; we are against war, we want peace,'" Chen said last Wednesday.

But some wonder if the President's pluck may prove calamitous for this small island and its vibrant democracy. While China last week repeated comments that a referendum on the island is viewed as a dangerous step towards holding a formal independence vote—a step Beijing has long warned would spell war—of more immediate consequence to Taiwan was the reaction from its closest friend and biggest supplier of arms, the U.S.

On Tuesday President George W. Bush, at a press conference to mark Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's first visit to the White House, appeared to side with Beijing by issuing a rebuke to Chen, signaling that Taiwan's President should not move ahead with the referendum for fear it would upset the diplomatic ambiguity that allows Taiwan and China to remain at arm's length. "The comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo," a position, Bush said, that the U.S. "opposes."

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That kind of emphatic language—to say little of Bush downgrading President Chen to Taiwan's "leader"—stopped traffic on the island. Not many in Taiwan fail to recognize that the U.S.—and its supply of military hardware—is all that stands between the island's freewheeling democracy and mainland rule. Until now, few U.S. Presidents have offered more support to Taiwan than Bush. In 2001 Bush said the U.S. would do "whatever it takes" to defend the island against a Chinese attack. In the last two years, a Taiwanese deputy defense minister visited Washington a couple of times—after no one as senior had made a visit of the kind in more than two decades. And last month, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Chen shook hands and chatted while on a visit to Panama.

Bush's prior tacit support, analysts argue, has encouraged Chen to push the envelope on the island's status—and galvanize nationalist sentiment—in the lead-up to the presidential election next year. David Lampton, professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins University, told the Associated Press that Bush felt it was time to make clear to Chen that he "did not have a blank check to be filled out in American blood."

Taiwan is now bracing itself for what lies ahead. At best, analysts in Taipei claim, Bush's comments were merely rhetoric to give Wen something substantial to take home to appease the hard-liners in China's military who are baying for a fight with Taiwan. At worst, says Parris Chang, a co-chairman of Taiwan's parliament's foreign relations committee, it's the first step towards a significant U.S. policy switch on Taiwan. "We have to wait and see if the substance changes," says Chang. "Of course, we hope this is rhetoric and nothing else. There is a lot at stake."