ROC Foreign Affairs Minister James Huang said on 21 April that he had been closely watching Chinese President Hu Jintao's first official visit to the United States, and that he is convinced that the democratisation of China is the key issue affecting trilateral relations between Washington, Taipei and Beijing, as well as for securing peaceful relations across the Taiwan Strait.

The longstanding policy of the United States is that it opposes unilateral changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and that the differences between the two sides should be resolved peacefully. U.S. President George W. Bush reiterated this stance April 20 in a welcome speech for Hu on the south lawn of the White House.

"We are pleased to see that President Bush reaffirmed the U.S. government's opposition to unilateral changes in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by either side," Huang said. He added that Bush's remarks were consistent with the Taiwanese position on the issue, and that Taiwan has the same concerns as the United States does about the slow pace of democratisation in China.

When asked by a member of the press corps when China would implement democracy, Hu first responded that he did not quite understand the meaning of "democracy" as the reporter used the word. He then spoke about something he described as "Chinese style" democratisation, according to Huang.

Commenting on Hu's lack of familiarity with the term, Huang explained that democracy basically means that people can freely choose their leaders, that people can participate in the policy-making process of their country, and that both the people and the government respect and protect freedom of speech and minority rights.

"While China has always said that the 'Taiwan problem' is the most sensitive issue in its relations with the United States, we believe that the democratisation issue is the core problem in the trilateral relations," he added.

Huang said the administration's stance on cross-strait peace is detailed in an opinion piece written by ROC President Chen Shui-bian and published in the 20 April edition of The Wall Street Journal (reproduced above).

Chen said in the article that China's growing influence due to its newfound economic and military strength is gradually changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait in a way that his government "cannot afford to ignore." "While we may not be able to curb this trend completely, we still strive to maintain a peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait," Chen said.

Chen blasted Beijing for refusing to interact with Taiwan's democratically elected government over the past six years, while inviting members of Taiwan's opposition parties to visit China to undermine the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). He said these visits were "timed to draw attention away from the passage of China's anti-secession law," a law he claims unilaterally changes the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

Chen reiterated that the DPP government is willing to have direct dialogue with Beijing without preconditions to seek peaceful solutions to bilateral problems. "Meaningful reduction of the military threat and dealing directly with Taiwan's duly elected leaders would be a good foundation on which to start," he said.

On 21 April, Liu Teh-shun, a vice chairman of the ROC Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), offered his take on the meeting between Bush and Hu when he said that only peace and democracy would resolve cross-strait disputes.

Despite Bush's reiteration of the official U.S. "one China" policy, Liu lauded Bush's statement about peace in the Taiwan Strait, saying that it conforms with the charter of the United Nations.

Liu noted that China has engaged in a rapid military buildup in recent years despite the absence of an outside threat, which he said has created widespread concerns in the international community and threatens "peace-loving Taiwan and China's other neighbors." In addition, Liu said the passage of the anti-secession law last year also violates international conventions regarding the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Liu said the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are independent of each other, the sovereignty of Taiwan lies with its people, and only the Taiwanese people have the right to decide their future.

"Taiwan will not rule out the possibility of developing any types of relations with China," Liu said, even though any specific resolution of cross-strait disputes will have to be agreed upon by the Taiwanese people through a democratic process.

Liu explained that promoting democracy in China is an ROC government policy and that the MAC will urge the international community to pressure the Chinese government to lift its ban on certain newspapers, stop engaging in censorship and release all prisoners of conscience.

Answering questions at a Legislative Yuan interpellation session, Premier Su Tseng-chang said he appreciates Bush's emphasis during his talks with Hu on the U.S. security commitment to Taiwan and the preservation of peace in the Taiwan Strait.

Su said it is a pity that former Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan did not mention Taiwan's efforts to promote human rights when he visited China to attend an economic forum earlier this month. He added, however, that the conclusions reached at the end of the forum should be viewed from a pragmatic perspective.

"We will not dismiss these results from the forum just because they were proposed by China or the KMT," Su explained. He went on to say that, as long as these measures can truly benefit Taiwan, the government will take them into consideration, since it is the government's policy to foster cross-strait exchange.

Taiwanese experts on international relations also closely watched the high-profile meeting between Bush and Hu. A conference held on 21 April by Academia Sinica and the Institute of International Relations at Chengchi University discussed the possible impact of the meeting on trilateral relations.

Analysts taking part in the conference agreed that the meeting between Bush and Hu symbolised the elevation of Sino-U.S. relations from the level of simple bilateral interaction to an international level.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published April 25, the ROC president said that the open protest against Hu on April 20 by a Chinese pathologist, who is also a freelance writer for the Falun Gong-backed newspaper the Epoch Times, is a reflection on China's poor record on human rights. He said the incident "highlighted not only China's suppression of Falun Gong followers and of the freedom of religion and belief, but also its human rights record." Before being removed, the heckler was reportedly allowed to continue haranguing Hu for three minutes, causing a disruption to the tightly choreographed visit. Beijing considers the Falun Gong spiritual movement a threat and in 1999 banned it as a cult and began jailing practitioners.

Chen pointed out that China and the United States have very different interpretations of Beijing's "one China" principle, as can be seen in the April 20 speeches by Bush and Hu. He said the "one China" policy of the United States simply means that it does not support Taiwan independence--a phrasing that should not be misinterpreted as meaning that it opposes Taiwan independence. He added that what the United States emphasises is the process, and it "does not have a predetermined position or conclusion as opposed to the so-called ultimate unification or peaceful unification proposed by China."

In the same interview, Chen warned against Taiwan's excessive economic reliance on China and stressed that the country needs to move ahead with a major purchase of U.S. arms to counter China's military buildup. Chen, however, also expressed optimism about a long-awaited influx of Chinese tourists to Taiwan, which could begin by the end of this year and is expected to boost the island's economy.