(12 Aug 2000) English/Nat
XFA
A Republican congressman has lambasted his own country for what he calls shabby treatment of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian.
The Clinton administration wants Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian to be as
invisible as possible during his overnight stay this weekend.
The administration has given Chen a transit visa for a layover in Los Angeles to facilitate a visit he is making to the Caribbean.
The State Department has made it clear the administration would not look favourably on a proposal by members of Congress to meet with Chen during his stay in Los
Angeles.
China objected to the U-S decision to issue Chen a visa for the layover and warned that it would severely damage U-S ties with China.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and is extraordinarily sensitive to any activity that would give Chen increased international legitimacy.
But Republican congressman for California, Dana Rohrabacher, is hoping to meet with Chen privately on Sunday.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"What we have here is an example of grovelling before a dictator. This is the worst possible posture for the United States of America. There is a democratically elected president of a country - that means the Republic of China and Taiwan - and instead of treating him with the respect elected leaders deserve we are instead treating him very shabbily, in order to kowtow and do and try to win the favour with the despot. This makes no sense at all and it doesn't lead to peace and it doesn't lead to respect."
SUPER CAPTION: Dana Rohrabacher, Republican California
He said that American is pandering to China for not providing Chen with a full head state level of service during his brief stay.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I think that president Chen should be treated as a visiting head of state who is in transit
and not a pryer who has to sneak into the back door in order to spent the night. And for heads of states in transit here there is no restrictions placed on who they 're gonna see and who they're gonna talk to. And proper respect is paid. President Chen is the highest elected Chinese in the world. The people in Beijing are not elected. They are not a lawful government. It is president Chen who is the lawful government here. And by cow towing and by grovelling before these dictators we are in ourselves devaluing the standard that we place on democracy and freedom."
SUPER CAPTION: Dana Rohrabacher, Republican California
Rohrabacher is one of China's harshest critics in congress.
He says the Chinese are obtaining American technology through commercial activities and the communist regime then utilizes that technology to develop a better defense system which ultimately may one day cost many American lives.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We are building a Frankenstein monster. We are giving the Chinese communists the technology and the wealth that they need to build a mighty nation that someday could murder a million of Americans. Eight years ago four to five Chinese rockets that went up blew up. Today nine out of ten Chinese rockets that go up, go up and carry more than one payload and are totally reliable, in fact in some ways are more reliable than our own rockets. What happened? How did that happen? It happened because American companies went over there while this administration claimed that communist Chinese were our strategic partners and gave technology that American taxpayers spent billions of dollars developing to a dictatorship, to our worst potential enemy."
SUPER CAPTION: Dana Rohrabacher, Republican California
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