WSJ: ‘Old China hands’ spell danger for Bush

“The last thing the world needs at this roiling moment in history is for a crisis to erupt across the Strait of Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal notes in a December 3 editorial.

“Yet that’s precisely what could happen if President Bush accepts a proposal being floated inside his foreign policy team for a fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward Taiwan.”

That proposal, a product of China cleverlings James Moriarty of the National Security Council and Doug Paal, who represents the US in Taipei, would have Washington take Beijing’s side on the Taiwan independence question. As we reported earlier this week, Moriarty and Paal want President Bush to abandon the longtime neutral “non-support” of Taiwanese independence to one of “opposition.”

That radical retreat, which sinapologists have been trying to implement under the radar and outside the established policy process, is likely to radicalize the Taiwanese public.

“Such a US policy shift might also invite some miscalculations from Beijing,” the Wall Street Journal adds. PRC “Premier Wen might well take back the message that China now has a freer hand to saber-rattle toward Taiwan, including perhaps even destabilizing shows of force. Then Mr. Bush really would have another crisis on his hands.”