US/CHINA: President George Bush angered Beijing yesterday by calling Taiwan a role model for democracy and urging China to open up its political system.
On the first day of a trip to Asia, when he met Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, Mr Bush went out of his way to praise Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.
"By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese society," he said, adding that political freedoms inevitably followed the kind of economic liberalisation China had begun to pursue.
"As China reforms its economy, its leaders are finding that once the door to freedom is opened even a crack, it cannot be closed. The freer China is at home, the greater the welcome it will receive abroad," he said.
China's foreign minister Li Zhaoxing warned that the US must not support Taiwanese independence. "The US must recognises its commitments on the One-China policy," he said.
At a press conference with Mr Koizumi, Mr Bush said there was no change in Washington's One-China policy, but China should leave Taiwan alone.
"The Asian region, indeed all regions, are better off as democracies. Societies become more stable as they give more say to their people," he said.
"What I will say to China and other countries is that a free society is in your interest. We support the One China policy." Mr Bush is to visit Beijing this week.
Earlier this year, the State Department called China an "authoritarian state".
It said the Falun Gong movement had been a target since 1999, and tens of thousands of followers had been forced into re-education camps, and many had died. - (Guardian service)