"What is Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui up to?" That remains the burning question, following Lee's apparent abandonment of the long-standing "one-China" policy that used to be the one important common denominator underwriting cross-strait relations and Sino-U.S. and Sino-Japanese relations regarding Taiwan. Lee has asserted that future cross-strait interaction should be based on the premise of "state-to-state" or at least "special state-to-state" relations: a pronouncement that drew a predictable, immediate, furious reaction from Beijing.

Frankly, I am not sure what motivated Lee to take such a stand at this time. His comments seemed more spontaneous than premeditated, but clearly reflect Taiwan's growing frustration with Beijing's attempts to force Taiwan to accept a politically inferior position going into cross-strait talks -- which Lee finds politically untenable and personally insulting. While he probably sees his current rhetorical shift as only a modest and logical extension of his previous positions, the initial reaction -- both in the world press and in Beijing -- has helped create a crisislike atmosphere.

One problem, of course, is that everything Lee says draws an automatic negative reaction from Beijing, causing many people to interpret China's most recent claim -- that this is "an extremely dangerous step," putting relations "at the brink of the precipice" -- as just more empty posturing. This would be a serious mistake. Before this latest pronouncement, the Chinese were already seriously paranoid about Lee's "split-ist" intentions and are interpreting this new stand as a frontal attack on Chinese President Jiang Zemin's (to them) moderate Taiwan policy. The fact that it comes at a time when Sino-U.S. relations are at their worst in years increases China's paranoia.