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Powell backpedals on Taiwan remarks
Seattle Times/Reuters-ComPost ^ | 10-28-04 | None given

Posted on 10/28/2004 7:29:24 AM PDT by tallhappy

Thursday, October 28, 2004, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

Permission to reprint or copy this article/photo must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail resale@seattletimes.com with your request.


Powell backpedals on Taiwan remarks

By Reuters and The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday carefully avoided repeating a suggestion he made earlier this week of an eventual reunification of China and Taiwan.

Powell's suggestion, made during a visit to China, alarmed Taiwanese officials who regard the island as an independent nation.

Asked about the comment, Powell reverted to the U.S. State Department's long-standing position that China and Taiwan should seek a "peaceful resolution" of their disagreements. He took no position on the outcome in comments to CNBC, according to a transcript released by the State Department.

Powell, in a pair of television interviews Monday in Beijing, said the United States holds that there is only one China and that Taiwan is not an independent nation. He went on to suggest that Taiwanese and Americans as well as Chinese are seeking to bring about the island's reunification with the mainland.

The comments, broadcast by CNN and the Hong Kong-based Phoenix news channel, veered noticeably from the standard formulations of U.S. policy, which was worked out in three U.S.-Chinese communiqués issued after President Nixon resumed contacts with China in 1972.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has threatened to invade if the self-ruled democratic island, which it regards as a renegade province, formally declared independence.

The fuss demonstrated anew the high level of tension across the Taiwan Strait and the strained formulas that China and Taiwan use to argue about their long standoff. But it also drew attention to an expanding gap between U.S. policy, which has not changed in a quarter-century, and Taiwan's steadily evolving idea of itself as an independent country determined not to be swallowed up by China.

Alarmed, Taiwan's leaders accused Powell of springing an unfair surprise with a major policy shift and reaffirmed their passionate insistence that the island is independent, in fact if not in law.

"Other countries, with or without formal diplomatic relations with us, cannot affect or deny the current situation and the fact that the Republic of China, or Taiwan, is a sovereign, independent country," President Chen Shui-bian said in Taipei on Tuesday.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; powell; taiwan
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Dumb mistake on Powell's part.
1 posted on 10/28/2004 7:29:25 AM PDT by tallhappy
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To: Admin Moderator

Oops -- this probably needs to be excerpted.


2 posted on 10/28/2004 7:30:25 AM PDT by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: tallhappy

True, but I wouldn't mind a reunification with Taiwan taking over China. =)


3 posted on 10/28/2004 7:31:57 AM PDT by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: tallhappy

Please clean out Powell and the rest of the stooges at State during your second term Mr. President. I blunder like this is inexcusable!


4 posted on 10/28/2004 7:33:22 AM PDT by conservativecorner
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To: coconutt2000

That is what Nixon meant. The statement was meant to be ambiguous, but everyone KNOWS what Nixon meant.


5 posted on 10/28/2004 8:01:37 AM PDT by fooman (Get real with Kim Jung Mentally Ill about proliferation)
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To: tallhappy

You don't think that, with Castro's stepping down, we're not going to have to give a little where our "Cuba" is concerned?


6 posted on 10/28/2004 8:13:17 AM PDT by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: tallhappy

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "Economic strength more important than military strength".

Now that China is becoming a serious contender for world power he is bending Taiwan over and saying, "Grab your heels, Old Friend".


8 posted on 10/28/2004 9:01:19 AM PDT by B4Ranch (´´Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; They are our teeth for Liberty)
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To: tallhappy

I used to have a lot of respect for Powell. However, for the past 4 years he's had to gargle a lot of dr. schols because of all of his mis-speaks. He definitely does not project the American image abroad that he should.


9 posted on 10/28/2004 9:08:38 AM PDT by Godzilla (Our military is the BEST, stop Disrespecting them Mr. Kerry. You sound so 1971-ish)
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To: bluegill

Your comment may be the stupidest I've seen here.


10 posted on 10/28/2004 10:46:26 AM PDT by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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Comment #11 Removed by Moderator

To: tallhappy

Freudian slip?


12 posted on 10/29/2004 8:11:25 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: tallhappy
Pan-blues block arms deal citing Powell's comments - Oct 27, 2004 - The statute governing the arms deal with the US failed to pass the Procedure Committee yesterday as the pan-blue camp claimed they objected to the statute in response to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that "Taiwan is not a sovereign state," and the meeting ended in confusion as the lawmakers from the two camps threw their lunch boxes and other items at each other to vent their frustration.

"I suggest the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) revise its version to withdraw all arms deals with the US. If the US does not acknowledge [Taiwan] as a sovereign state, we should not buy any weapons from the US," Liu said when commenting officially on the bills arranged to be reviewed in the committee yesterday.

While Liu was making the statement, several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers chanted, "Powell doesn't love Taiwan," and "We are not intimidated."

In the end, the pan-blue camp again got its way with its majority in the committee, but the meeting ended in chaos after KMT Legislator Chu Fung-chih and DPP Legislator Chen Tsung-yi escalated their quarrel with a barrage of flying lunch boxes, paper cups and notebooks.

Chu and KMT Legislator Hung Shiu-chu were mocking Chen as someone without lam pa (balls) during the session, and in the end Chu lost his cool and started to throw things -- including his lunch boxes -- at Chen.

Chen threw things back, but shortly after the exchange DPP caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang demanded that caucus members leave the session to protest the pan-blue's boycott. The session then ended amid chaos.

"The KMT insists that the ROC is an independent country, and we object to the international powerhouse's arrangement for Taiwan's future. Taiwan's future should be decided by its 23 million people," Huang said.

13 posted on 10/29/2004 8:49:44 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe
There are people here on this forum still trying to say the pan-Blues are the conservative-Republican equivalent in Taiwan.

But they are trying to block arms procurement. If Kerry wins the sales may not even be possible.

14 posted on 10/29/2004 8:53:53 AM PDT by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: tallhappy
Not so sure he backpedaled.

Looks like he let the comment stand and has redrawn the points.

We have five now, IMO.

Like it was never there. Sorta, kinda, maybe.

15 posted on 10/29/2004 8:55:22 AM PDT by Cold Heat (http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/staticpages/index.php?page=20040531140357545)
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To: tallhappy

I think the salient point is that they stressed that they were already independent. They don't need or want to declare independence because it's unnecessary and they expect to reunify with a China free of reds. They are certainly not the commie lap-dogs that "people on this forum" have said they are.


16 posted on 10/29/2004 9:02:42 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: bluegill
The last time the United States acted as Nationalist China's protector (1941) it brought us the attack on Pearl Harbor, involvement in World War 2, and 400,000 dead. You'd think we learned our lesson after that.

Yah, the Japanese should have been appeased. They'd have stopped with Nanking, you betcha.

During the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre, the Chinese were not simply murdered. They were tortured, humiliated, and raped. The Japanese used a wide variety of methods of murder. They chased the Chinese into the Yangtze River with machine guns, drowning them. They poured gasoline on people, and shot them, so the victims flickered up like candles. They cut the eyeballs out of men, and then burned the people while they were still living. They tied Chinese civilians up on posts, and threw grenades to watch their flesh fly. A Japanese general poured acid on a man until he died of corrosion. Some Chinese were attacked with awls. Others were castrated. Some Chinese even had their hearts cut out. Some women were beaten at the vagina with fists and other objects until they died. Even babies were victims; they were skewered and tossed into boiling water. Hakudo Nagatomi, a Japanese war veteran, described, "I remember smiling proudly as I took his [another general's] sword and began killing people...The head was cut clean off and tumbled away on the ground as the body slumped forward, blood spurting in two great gushing fountains from the neck."

Japanese soldiers laughingly made games out of these atrocities. The Japanese generals organized contests to see how many Chinese one soldier could murder in a given time. Whoever killed the most won. News reporters and visitors came to observe the competitions and raise praise for the victor back in Japan. Sometimes the number of bodies reached as high as five-hundred in a single contest. In one such contest, two officers were racing to one hundred. However, they lost count, so they continued to one hundred and fifty. A short while later, the Nichi-nichi, a Tokyo newspaper, printed the story with pride. Highly respected Japanese doctors and scientists went to China to do scientific research on unwilling Chinese victims. In many cases, the subjects were American and Russian prisoners. Tests were done without anesthesia or pain killers. The Japanese placed people in pressure chambers to see how long it would take until their eyes popped out of the sockets. Lethal bacteria and other biological weapons were tested on people tied to stakes. Fetuses were cut from pregnant women and preserved in jars. The Japanese government also sponsored bombings of bubonic plague on villages to test germ warfare for later use on the United States.

Because over twenty thousand women and girls were raped, the Nanking Massacre is also referred to as the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese officers encouraged their soldiers to rape wherever they went. One officer told his soldiers, "To avoid troubles,... kill them after that." So, soldiers raped in gangs of dozens and murdered the women afterward. The victims had their stomachs cut open or their breasts chopped off. "Comfort women" were kept as sex slaves in wood cabins to service the Japanese soldiers throughout the day. In one incident, a mother, two teenage daughters, and a one year old baby were raped in their own home. The family was raped and killed on their own tables and beds. When the International Committee entered the house to photograph the incident, they found blood everywhere.

The Japanese finally left China when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the six weeks of horror, Nanking was left in ruins. The storehouses were empty, and the civilians had lost everything. Their jewelry, coins, food, clothes, heirlooms, pets, and even everyday objects like dental floss were stolen. Only bodies were in abundance. So many dead bodies clogged the streets it was hard to move around, even on foot. They floated in the river for a year afterwards, emitting a smell for miles around. The International Committee buried the bodies in mass graves and kept close count of the marked sites.

The Atrocities of the Massacre

Oh wait, they didn't stop with Nanking, they joined the Axis Powers.

17 posted on 10/29/2004 9:28:47 AM PDT by Fatalis (The Libertarian Party is to politics as Esperanto is to linguistics.)
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Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: Tailgunner Joe
...they expect to reunify with a China free of reds.

That's no longer true, though.

19 posted on 10/29/2004 9:43:41 AM PDT by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: tallhappy

Says who? Do you have evidence of that?


20 posted on 10/29/2004 9:45:10 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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