it seems like the u.s. is going out of its way to piss off the prc. good. maybe the intent is to provoke these displays of impotent fury as a way of demonstrating how little real power the prc leadership has. in a "face" based society this could mean a lot more than is obvious to a western observer. the one thing you can count on with clinton -- he won't stay bought.

Maybe he's getting back at them for editing his book.

This looks to me like more of a backchannel way of defusing tensions in the region. Slick Willie was close to the PRC and pretty hostile to Taiwan while in power, so my guess is that, all shouting to the contrary, the PRC is telling the Taiwanese not to get all nervous, that things are basically OK.

Bart:

Your scenario is not impossible. But given the mentality and paranoia of Party leaders in China, it's unlikely.

Or, to get more Machiavellian, it's simply more triangulation for Hillery. Remember, Clinton ran against Bush 41 and slammed him for not being tough enough on China after Tiananmen Square, which made Bill look like more of a hard-liner on foreign policy. Come 2008, it's going to be tough to paint whoever the GOP nominee is as soft on China, but by Bill going to Taiwan, it can offset the view following the China arms deal scandals that he (and by implication, the missus) went in the tank for Beijing just to get campaign contributions.

On the other hand, this could also be Bill's hint to Beijing that it's time to come up with more campaign contributions for 2008, or the Clintons may be forced to find alternative sources of funding and won't even order out from Charlie Trie's restaurant the next time they're at the library in Little Rock.