W. down on the Kowtow ranch:
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Not so with China, though. After the fiasco that was Hu Jintao's visit to Washington DC, the U.S. is once again saying 'we're very sorry.' Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian had thought that he could stop over in the U.S. for a little schmoozing with his neocon buddies on his way to South America for an official visit, but the U.S. denied his request. Instead, he was given the option of either stopping in Alaska or Hawaii for a quick refueling stop. The NYT reports that the U.S. is "eager to avoid antagonizing China," especially after the whole yelling-Falun-Gong-lady incident.

The official reason we're treating Chen this way is because the administration is mad at him for "abolishing" the National Reunification Council, which apparently, was long moribund: but the move was nevertheless one that greatly torked off the Chinese. At the time the U.S. State Dept. issued a rebuke to Chen to show they were onboard with their Chinese masters.

Plus, we need them in the Security Council to help us out with Iran....oh yeah, and North Korea and Sudan.

Besides all the money we owe them, it seems like every week there's another thing we need them to do for us. Another year of this sort of thing and they can just march right into Taipei and we won't lift a finger. Hell, we might even let them use some of our planes to land their troops; they basically paid for them anyway!