SINGAPORE -- As preparations are made for Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States and a presidential election is scheduled for spring 2008 in Taiwan, there are indications that the next two years could prove challenging for the main parties involved in cross-strait relations -- Beijing, Taiwan's Chen administration and the Pan-Blue opposition coalition, as well as Washington.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's Feb. 27 announcement -- which likely took Washington and Beijing by surprise -- that he would scrap the National Unification Council (NUC) and the National Unification Guidelines (NUG) has raised the stakes across the Taiwan Strait.

There are two likely reasons why Chen made such a bold move. First, he rushed this announcement through on the eve of the 2-28 commemoration, a key date for the Taiwanese independence lobby that marks when Kuomintang (KMT) troops killed local Taiwanese in 1949 as they occupied the island. Second, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Representative Douglas Paal (who reputedly "controlled" Chen on behalf of the U.S. State Department) had left, and his successor, Stephen Young, whom many thought would take a less hardline position toward Chen, had yet to arrive. Chen could thus have been testing Washington as well.