genzo2106

Extracted from:http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne...711-17984.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Joseph Wu is a diplomat without an embassy.

He cannot fly his flag from the bland office building that serves as his headquarters. His president is banned from visiting Washington, and Wu and his colleagues are barred from the State Department and White House; they meet senior U.S. administration officials in restaurants and coffee shops.

Wu does not represent an enemy of the United States. He is chief diplomat for Taiwan, a vibrant self-governing island that the United States hints it would go to war to protect if nuclear-armed China attacked.

This is the bizarre lot of Taiwan's diplomats in Washington, where China, Taiwan's bitter rival in a long-simmering, unresolved civil war, passionately objects to anything that suggests official U.S. recognition of the island.

Taiwan is a major U.S. trading partner and a like-minded liberal democracy. But its representatives are prevented from enjoying the diplomatic prestige accorded even U.S. adversaries -- such as Syria and Sudan -- that maintain embassies in Washington.

"It frustrates us sometimes, because even though we function like a real embassy and I function like a real ambassador, I'm subject to different kinds of restrictions," Wu said in an interview.

The United States follows a "one China" policy that recognizes there is a single China and that self-ruled Taiwan is part of it. But Washington still encourages the sale of defensive weapons to Taiwan, and, in 2002, President George W. Bush pledged to "help Taiwan defend itself if provoked."

Taiwanese diplomats working in the U.S. capital are constrained by internal U.S. guidelines laid out in 1979, when Washington switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. These guideline are meant to allow for continued U.S. support of Taiwan, while also appeasing China.

Many in the U.S. Congress champion a lifting of the restrictions. But the Bush administration is wary of offending China, a growing economic and military power and a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council.

Beijing watches carefully all moves Taiwan makes in Washington. China claims Taiwan as its own and has repeatedly threatened to attack should the island formalize its de facto independence; it opposes anything that appears to give Taiwan the trappings of sovereignty.

"They are trying to marginalize us," Wu said. "The Chinese government has been trying to corner Taiwan on every occasion, in every kind of incident they can."

Taiwan, in turn, often tests the boundaries.

Witness a news conference given in May by Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian. Banned from visiting Washington, Chen appeared via satellite at the city's National Press Club, speaking from Taipei of his vision of Taiwan as "an independent, sovereign country" -- language that infuriates Beijing.

Chinese diplomats protested even this long-distant contact.

Chas. W. Freeman Jr., a former State Department official who helped craft the Taiwan guidelines, describes the "enormous ingenuity displayed by Taiwan's representatives in scoring points in some game that, frankly, most Americans neither care about or are unaware is even going on."

In response to requests for comment, the Chinese Embassy in Washington provided a statement that said U.S.-China relations are guided by the principle "that the U.S. only maintains commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan."

The State Department said the guidelines are "intended to be consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan."

Under the guidelines, Taiwan's president, vice president, premier and ministers of defense and foreign affairs cannot visit Washington, though they are often allowed to make visits or transit stops in other U.S. cities on their way to other countries.

The guidelines, which were updated last in 1994, are not enshrined in law but are reissued yearly, in abbreviated form, as "executive level guidance" meant to remind U.S. officials how to deal with Taiwan, said Randall Schriver, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs in the Bush administration.

There exists latitude within them to have more contact between the U.S. and Taiwan, and at higher levels, "but in practice and tradition it hasn't been done," said Schriver, now a partner at Armitage International, a consulting firm.

U.S. supporters of Taiwan are pushing for a change. In June, a congressional panel endorsed a resolution calling for the lifting of the restrictions banning visits by high-level Taiwanese officials to the United States, in order to "help bring a United States friend and ally out of its isolation."

"If we can sell Taiwan arms for its defense, it seems like we should be able to talk to one another," Republican Rep. Ed Royce said in an interview.

Royce said the U.S. should not "let China have a veto over" strong political and economic ties between the U.S. and Taiwan. "That doesn't mean we tug as hard as we can on the dragon's tail; but it doesn't mean we should tiptoe around it either," he said.
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Well, unless China gives their approval, I think times will remain hard for Taiwan diplomats in US

Life is full of ups and downs. But one has to learn how to stand up on his own and continue his path to attaining enlightment...:mellow3: :mellow3:

My articles at HELIUM:mellow3:

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