Vote Will Take Place, Taiwan’s Leader Says

Brushing aside strong pressure from the United States, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian vowed Wednesday to go ahead with plans to hold a national referendum in March on the highly sensitive issue of relations with China.

Chen’s remarks came less than 24 hours after President Bush publicly cautioned him against any unilateral action that might be construed as a move toward independence from mainland China. Beijing has threatened war if the island holds a vote on independence.

Speaking at a news conference in Taipei after receiving the Democratic Progressive Party’s formal nomination to run for a second term in the March 20 presidential election, Chen defended his decision to hold a “defensive referendum” that is expected to demand that China remove missiles pointed at the island.

“A defensive referendum is for avoiding war and to help keep the Taiwanese people free of fear,” Chen said in two meetings with reporters. “It is also for preserving the status quo.”

No exact wording has been released for the planned referendum, but it is expected to focus on China’s gradual buildup of medium-range missiles aimed at the island from positions along the Fujian coast less than 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait. Western intelligence sources have charted the buildup. .

Beijing considers the island a breakaway province and views its eventual reunification with the mainland as among its highest political priorities. China’s leaders have warned that any step by Taiwan’s leadership seen as an attempt to formalize the island’s de facto independence could trigger an armed attack.

Chen rejected such talk Wednesday.

“Taiwan people have the right to say loudly that they oppose missiles and are for democracy, oppose war and are for peace,” he said. “This is nothing to do with independence.”

Tensions across the Taiwan Strait rose last month after Chen appeared to defy the restrictions of a referendum law passed only days earlier with support from the opposition Nationalists. Those restrictions, although vaguely worded, appeared to limit the use of a “defensive referendum” to situations in which Taiwan faced imminent attack from the mainland.

Chen has been accused of pushing the referendum issue as part of a high-risk election strategy geared both toward showing his willingness to stand up to Beijing and provoking mainland leaders into making threats that would translate into votes.

The United States, as Taiwan’s only meaningful military backer, has tried to defuse the confrontation. Bush’s warning Tuesday contrasted sharply with his pledge 2 1/2 years ago to do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan and appeared to reflect, at least in part, the realities of a post-Sept. 11 world in which Beijing and Washington now share far more common ground on crucial issues such as the fight against terrorism and regional stability in Asia.

Since Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the communist armies in a bitter civil war, the island has been ruled separately. It functions as an independent country, although strong and consistent pressure from Beijing has kept it largely isolated diplomatically from the rest of the world.

The United States was forced to break formal diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 as a condition of establishing its ties with Beijing, but still maintains a presence there under the name of the American Institute in Taiwan.

Although Chinese leaders say they want to re-integrate Taiwan through negotiation, possibly under a one-country-two-systems formula used in the return of former European colonies Hong Kong and Macao in the 1990s, they also have said they would take the island by force if necessary.