Taiwan's planned referendum on United Nations membership may damage its crucial ties to the United States, but President Chen Shui-bian will most likely continue to mobilize his supporters to defy American pressure and see the proposal through. Some of Chen's family members are being chased by his own prosecutors in criminal cases. The latest prosecution of Taiwan's vice president and the chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) worsened Chen's concerns about his own future fate after retirement from office. The aggravated cross-Strait relations could, at least as he was reported to believe, extricate him from such a predicament or help him postpone the coming of a personal disaster.

       Currently, the Americans are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, the United States is coping with the thorny issues of nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea.  Moreover, the Americans are fighting a global war against international terrorist groups.  At this moment, Chen Shui-bian's actions seemingly are pushing the United States to a head-on collision with China, a regional nuclear power, only for the purpose of easing the personal sufferings of Chen and his associates, even though by using the excuse of Taiwan's uncertain future. 

For decades, Washington's policy not to allow unilateral changes of the status quo across the Taiwan Strait has fundamentally defused the potentially highly explosive cross-Strait relations and, therefore, has helped keep peace, stability, and security in East Asia. Furthermore, the implication of this policy makes it possible for China to side with the U.S. on a series of crucial global issues such as waging a global war on terrorism, preventing nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, preventing missile technology proliferation, nuclear terrorism and global drug smuggling, maintaining normal operations of the United Nations, and so on. Mainly for this reason, all the U.S. administrations have wisely carried out this established policy since the early 1970s.

       In short, China, as a state that has been satisfied with the established international order, obviously will continue to function positively and significantly in the right track if the cross-Strait status quo is not disrupted. This of course would not be true, however, in the case of a broken cross-Strait status quo. If so, the current considerably positive factor in favor of maintaining global balance would swiftly become a giant negative factor. As a result, the global enemies of the U.S. would at least triple their forces or even increase their forces tenfold. All the nightmares would come true only because of the reckless actions of some tens of politicians in Taiwan. Also, such a development would prove to be a cardiac stimulant for terrorist groups all over the world. They would go wild and challenge the security interests of the West. 

       Chen Shui-bian's referendum bid for UN membership reflects something unusual.  The potential danger does not exist in this desperate strike Chen has made before his retirement from office. Most of the DPP supporters appeared radical since the idea was proposed and were in favor of Chen's crazy bid. Most importantly, none of the DPP politicians has ever challenged whether his provocative actions were necessary.  All of them, including presidential and vice presidential candidates, were virtually kidnapped in his chariot.  The unique political ecology within the Pan-Green Camp (an informal political alliance in Taiwan consisting of the DPP, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), and the minor Taiwan independence parties; supporters are the Pan-Green supporters or Pan-Green Camp) and the policymaking mechanism within the DPP regime have taught people a lesson: Apparently, they cannot adapt to rational politics and the international environment in peacetime.  How can they resort to the rational action-and-reaction methodology in a military crisis?  If so, what does it mean to U.S. security interests in the Asia-Pacific region?

       Taiwan has of course a strategic position in the first and second island chains.  Chen Shui-bian has appeared too clever by half. Actually, the United States yet can ensure Taiwan's strategic position without fighting a large-scale war against China. It is unwise and unnecessary for the United States to fight. 

       If the DPP cannot adjust its radical policy, Washington can help establish a wise policymaking mechanism in Taipei. The available approach is to support the Kuomintang (KMT) to come back to power. Actually, this approach can function cost-effectively and can best serve the U.S. security interests as follows:

       First, in the past years, the U.S. defused possible conflicts across the Taiwan Strait several times. But, trouble would return if the DPP remains in power. Nobody is able to exclude the possibility of China and the United States, two nuclear powers, colliding head-on, if they are pushed too far. However, once the KMT returns to power, we can remove the detonator that can easily start a war across the Strait. Otherwise, the world would at least face frequent scares, or, worse, witness the nightmare of a nuclear exchange.  

       Second, the Bush Administration can ensure peace, stability, and security in the Asia-Pacific region before his departure from the White House. Thus, his successor would be able to concentrate on the Iraq War and the global war on terrorism in which China can provide valuable assistance.  

       Third, the DPP can only strengthen the anti-American sentiment of the 1.3 billion people in the mainland of China. The KMT could, if it comes back to power, reduce this anti-American sentiment and even lead and turn it against Beijing in case of need. In terms of mobilizing the Chinese nation, the differences between the roles that the DPP and the KMT have played are significant.

       Fourth, the most negative factor that might result from the KMT's return to power is alleged to be, for Western countries, the closer ties between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan in the course of China's peaceful rise. However, such a judgment may overestimate the positive result of a series of potentially complicated action-and-reaction events across the Strait in the future. Most likely, the KMT's return to power would only reactivate the incessant struggles between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that prevailed since 1927. It would take Beijing and Taipei decades to achieve mutual readjustment and integration even if China were eventually reunited. By that time, the West would have won the war on global terrorism and would be well prepared for any new international crisis.

       Fifth, after the political power has switched once again from the DPP to the KMT, the DPP would be able to learn lessons and review experiences that occurred in the eight-year tenure of Chen Shui-bian's regime.  Therefore, the DPP could become mature for a potential return to power years later.