Washington policy makers are worried that Taiwan will push for independence through constitutional reform in a "nightmare scenario, a former U.S. official said yesterday, in one of the bluntest warnings to be issued from an American visitor.
There are also worries that American and Taiwanese leaders are at odds with each other and rising anxiety over the Taipei government's flip-flopping policies, said Alan Romberg, a foreign policy expert and the former principal deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff.
"There is some concern... that momentum could build up a bottom-up constitutional reegineering process that could simply overcome ... good judgment...spelling disaster for Taiwan," said Romberg, currently the director of the East Asia Program at the Henry L Stimson Center.
Romberg said this could potentially involve the U.S. in a conflict with China.
"I want to underscore that there is some real concern about that nightmare scenario," he said.
President Chen Shui-bian has proposed reforming Taiwan's Constitution with the support of the public before his term as president ends in 2008.
Independence groups are calling for a new Constitution that will formalize the island's separate identity from rival China. But Beijing has threatened to launch an invasion if Taiwan pushes for independence.
Romberg said he understood that it would not be so easy to enact these kinds of constitutional changes -- for example, constitutional amendments need approval from three quarters of legislature, which is dominated by the pro-China opposition.
However, he said, the leaders of Taiwan and the U.S. "see things differently" and there are anxieties in the U.S. about the Chen administration's sudden policy changes.
"The government here had previously said certain sensitive issues should be excluded," Romberg said in a key note speech.
"It now says it not only endorses the democratic right of people to raise anything, but it will consider all such proposals with an open mind.
"For many Americans, this change at the very least creates anxiety and uncertainty about whether the government here sees the requirements to maintain peace and stability in ways that are compatible with how the government in Washington does," he said.
If Taiwan moved to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. would redress the situation, Romberg said. In a possible oblique criticism of Chen, the U.S. and China would also react to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait depending on "who was seen responsible for the crisis."
"Leadership is a key component of how well all the three actors manage their relations," Romberg said, referring to the U.S., Taiwan and China.
"What concerns Americans today is that our respective leaders may be operating on different assumptions and aiming at significantly goals," Romberg said.
Chen in late February scrapped a government council devoted to managing unification with the mainland, despite repeated U.S. warnings, angering Beijing.
The U.S. viewed the move as a violation of policy pledges Chen made in his inaugural speeches in 2000 and 2004.
The U.S. recently offered Chen a transit in Anchorage Alaska, ignoring Chen's requests to stop over in major U.S. cities, a move widely perceived here as a snub.
Romberg did not refer to Chen by name or refer directly to the Anchorage offer. He referred to it indirectly by saying it would be "misguided" to think that "recent decisions" made by Washington were a result of a desire to please China.
"It is quite obvious that the recent decisions were directly related to policies and actions adopted in Taiwan," Romberg said, in a reference to the stop over issue.
"(They) were seen in Washington as going back on previous commitments and understandings, which if carried further would inevitably have harmed very important U.S. national interests," he said.
He also said the U.S. highly valued its relationship with China and its "one China" policy allowed Taiwan to have a high level of unofficial contacts with America. Washington's relationship with Beijing was critical to its handling of urgent international issues, for example Iran, Romberg said.
Romberg said these were his personal views and he carried no message from the U.S. government. He also said he could not comment when asked if he conveyed these opinions to Chen and opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou in recent meetings.
Romberg was giving a key note speech at an international conference "The 1996 Strait Crisis: Decisions, Lessons and Prospects" sponsored by the U.S. Brookings Institution, the Foundation on International and Cross-strait Studies, ROC and Tamkang University.
He was introduced by Alexander Huang, director of the Graduate Institute of American Studies, Tamkang University, as a "true voice of Washington's Asia policy circle".
The former chairman of the unofficial U.S. institution that handles relations with Taiwan, Richard Bush, said in a speech said the 1996 missile crisis was an "important episode in the history of East Asia."
Bush, the former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chair and now director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies of the Brookings Institute said no one in the U.S. thought China would go to war in 1996 but there was concern out of an accident or miscalculation "something terrible might happen"
Bush, Romberg and three other U.S. scholars also paid a visit to Premier Su Tseng-chang for closed-door talks, according to a government statement. Su said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
Romberg was principle deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff from 1994 to 1998. He was also deputy spokesperson for the administration of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.
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