Rice Dips Toes Into US-Taiwan Relations

I guess the U.S. is starting to feel left out in this KMT-CCP love-fest that has been going on. The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, made some comments about the current relationship between Taiwan and U.S. in an interview with the WSJ here. Only a small part of the interview is about Taiwan, so you may want to skim it if you want to get straight to the Taiwan issue.

I've always found the U.S. position on Taiwan ironic, always seemingly playing both sides of the field. On one hand, they support Taiwan's international space, but at the same time discourages the type of "provocation" that Chen Shiu-bian apparently showed in promoting Taiwan as a country. Although, it's good to see that Rice recognized the real provocation from China (at least I think she was hinting at it- the 1,400 missiles aimed at Taiwan) in this line:

... we also want to make sure that China understands that it’s not just provocative behavior on the part of Taiwan that we would oppose, but provocative behavior on the part of China.

In other news, China will not allow the Chinese Tourists to Taiwan to participate in gambling, and "pornographic" activites... Yeah, whatever that means.