State Dept. Smooths Over Powell’s Slips of the Tongue

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher plunged Tuesday into one of the most delicate games that a press secretary can play: trying to explain what his boss really meant to say.

At his daily briefing, Boucher said the department has received complaints from China and a number of Arab countries because Secretary of State Colin L. Powell used two diplomatically proscribed phrases in congressional testimony last week, referring to Taiwan as “the Republic of China” and to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Boucher said the references--which mirror the phrases that Taiwan and Israel use--did not represent a change in long-established U.S. policy.

“If we want to praise the secretary for being open and speaking English and talking without following a specific script, one would also have to accept that as part of that the language might be a little looser at times,” Boucher said.

Boucher said he was confident that Powell would not use the disputed language again.

When Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Nationalist army fled to Taiwan more than five decades ago after Communist forces overran the mainland, his government retained the name Republic of China. Mao Tse-tung’s Communist regime adopted the name People’s Republic of China.

In 1979, when President Carter switched U.S. diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the U.S. government began referring to the island as Taiwan.

Similarly, the United States does not officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, although Powell told the House International Relations Committee last week that President Bush intends to honor a campaign commitment to eventually move the U.S. Embassy to the disputed city. The Palestinians see East Jerusalem as their future capital.