Protesters Decry China Exercises Off Taiwan

Hundreds of Taiwan supporters demonstrated in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on Wednesday, demanding an immediate end to China’s bombing rehearsals near the island nation.

Chanting “China, hands off Taiwan!” and “China, Asia’s Iraq!” almost 300 people representing a coalition of 80 Taiwanese and Chinese American organizations in Southern California protested in intermittent rain for 90 minutes to show their disapproval of the Chinese war games that began this week in the Taiwan Strait.

“What China is doing is outrageous,” said Taiwanese American Ting-Yee “Tim” Wang, a civil engineer from Sunset Beach in Orange County. “China is violating international law by intimidating democratic forces in Taiwan and interfering with transportation routes.”

Her face dripping with rain, Lin Wu Lan, an insurance agent from Artesia, accused China of creating the current crisis to draw attention away from its own internal problems.

“China never refuses our [Taiwan’s] money, but whenever they have internal problems, they create outside conflicts,” she said.

Taiwanese expatriates across the United States, most of them U.S.-educated professionals, have been protesting in front of Chinese consulates since Friday when China set off three ballistic missiles within 30 miles of the Taiwan coast.

The military maneuvers have heightened tensions between China and Taiwan to their worst level since the late 1950s.

This week the United States, in a show of support, dispatched the aircraft carrier Independence off the coast of Taiwan and on Wednesday the Nimitz headed to the region.

The U.S. action was welcomed by many.

“Taiwan needed that support,” said H. John Hsu, a U.S.-educated agricultural chemist who is president of a biotech firm in Ventura. “Taiwan can fight for itself, but it needed that [moral] support from the United States.”

Taiwan supporters say the war games are designed to crush independence sentiment before Taiwan’s first free presidential elections scheduled for March 23.

China considers Taiwan, seat of the Nationalist government that fled mainland China in 1949 after the Communist takeover, as a renegade province. Thus, China maintains that a province cannot have a presidential election.

Consulate officials did not return calls from The Times. But officials in Beijing have maintained that the military exercises are an internal matter into which outsiders, such as the United States, should not intervene.

Demonstrators also urged President Clinton to issue a strong, public denunciation of the Chinese war games.

They said the Chinese missile tests and military maneuvers have seriously violated the sovereignty of Taiwan and the security of its 21 million residents.

Wednesday’s protest also showed just how complicated the Taiwan-China issue is.

Though all the protesters were united on their opposition to China’s latest threats, they were divided on Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Taiwanese-born protesters, such as Wang, support a two nation policy--Taiwan and China. But Canton-born Joe Y. Chiu, president of a group representing Chinese family organizations in Chinatown, said he favors one China, free of Communists.

On one side of Shatto Place in front of the Chinese Consulate stood mostly Taiwanese, while across the street were mostly Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals, holding Republic of China flags.