SINGAPORE -- As flights cross the Taiwan Strait at the start of the Year of the Dog, hopes have been high for a possible rapprochement in ties between Beijing and Taipei. But observers are split on whether to expect "a new spring" or renewed tensions across the strait in the next two years before Chen Shui-bian steps down as Taiwan's president.
Chen delivered a surprisingly hardline speech on New Year's Day and then followed that up, in a Chinese New Year address, with a proposal to scrap the 1998 reunification guidelines with the mainland. This was significant, as Chen had just installed his fifth government and prime minister in six years.
More surprising was the public rebuke of Chen by Washington. The U.S. State Department reiterated Washington's cross-strait policy based on the "one-China principle." It termed Chen's Lunar New Year remarks as "inflammatory" and warned him not to upset the delicate relationship among China, the United States and Taiwan. For the first time, Washington condemned Taiwan's bid to participate in the United Nations and related agencies (such as the World Health Organization) as an attempt to "unilaterally change the status quo."