The State Department does an about-face, lending unexpected support to President Chen Shui-bian. Members of the "Taiwan Haters Club" must be truly dismayed. When Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian formally announced the scrapping of the National Unification Council (NUC) on Monday, these supreme panda huggers were, with good reason, expecting the Taiwanese "troublemakers" to be lambasted by the Bush administration. After all, it is U.S. policy to maintain the uneasy status quo between Taiwan and mainland China. Instead, the State Department spokesman was seen as defending Taipei's move.Speaking at a national security council conference on February 27, Chen concluded that the...