My disdain for the State Department is something I’ve tried hard to remove. But I must concede defeat. Every time I take a fresh look at Foggy Bottom, my vision’s fogged by the mistreatment of Taiwan by American diplomacy. Old habits die hard.

On the first day of the Year of the Dog, Taiwan’s democratically elected president, Chen Shui-bian, mentioned that three things are under consideration: (1) Whether to abolish the Guidelines for National Unification and the National Unification Council; (2) Whether to apply for membership in the United Nations using the name Taiwan instead of the official name, the Republic of China, and (3) Whether to hold a referendum on a new constitution in 2007.

China’s opposition to any of these moves is expected. China Daily, for example, criticized it as going against the “people’s will.” What’s been unexpected, however, is that Beijing’s temper has been relatively mild, without resorting to its knee-jerk reaction of threatening war.

It’s not that the Chinese communists have gone soft. Far from it. China’s missile build-up across the Taiwan Strait has never ceased. It’s that Beijing can relax a bit more these days because now it can count on Washington’s big stick to rein in Taiwan.

The State Department sent a Lunar New Year present to Beijing last week by issuing a statement reiterating “The United States does not support Taiwan independence and opposes unilateral change to the status quo by either Taiwan or Beijing. We support dialogue in the interest of achieving a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait differences in a manner that is acceptable to the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

State’s spokesman, Adam Ereli, characterized Mr. Chen’s remarks as “inflammatory” and sending “the wrong signal.” He also said Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations would be a “unilateral change to the status quo.” When asked at the daily press briefing whether the State Department had been caught by surprise, Mr. Ereli replied, “We certainly weren’t expecting it and we weren’t consulted about it. So I’d say it was a surprise.”

Beijing couldn’t have been happier. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman cited those remarks as evidence that America “repeated its stance to stick to the one-China policy and opposed the so-called ‘Taiwan Independence.'” He also asked America to support Beijing to “strike against” the separatist activities. Another official called Mr. Chen a “troublemaker and saboteur of cross-Straits ties and Asia-Pacific peace and stability.”

The State Department has been combing through Mr. Chen’s speeches all along. When he first raised the possibility of holding a referendum on a new constitution in a speech on another New Year’s Day, State also reacted immediately with a warning: “We expect that President Chen would adhere to his pledges, which we take very seriously.”

The pledges, known as the “Five No’s,” refer to what Mr. Chen said in his inaugural speech on May 20, 2000: “I pledge that during my term in office, I will not declare independence, I will not change the national title, I will not push forth the inclusion of the so-called ‘state-to-state’ description in the Constitution, and I will not promote a referendum to change the status quo in regard to the question of independence or unification. Furthermore, there is no question of abolishing the Guidelines for National Unification and the National Unification Council.”

By suggesting the abolishment of the NUC, Mr. Chen is being accused by Beijing explicitly and Washington implicitly that he’s breaking his promise. On the surface, Mr. Chen does seem guilty. However, whenever critics bring up the “Five No’s,” a crucial precondition is always conveniently ignored.

Before the pledges in the speech, in the previous sentence, Mr. Chen said “as long as the CCP regime has no intention to use military force against Taiwan.” The reality is that, as Taiwan’s mainland affairs council correctly pointed out, “China’s intimidation and suppression have been on the increase.”

The NUC, established in 1990 by the then Kuomintang government, or KMT, issued the guidelines in the following year calling for a phased approach toward unification. It’s a product of an old era, before the wave of democracy swept through Taiwan, when the ruling party KMT was indistinguishable from the state.

Now, the future of Taiwan should be determined by its 23 million people and not by any party, be it the opposition KMT or Mr. Chen’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. The KMT still can keep the goal of unification on its party platform, but a governmental body shouldn’t be pre-empting the people’s wishes.

It’s interesting to see that even the chairman of the KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, and the mayor of Taipei said this week that “the island’s future should be determined by its people, rather than the government.” Mr. Ma, a presidential aspirant in 2008, added that the KMT “now believes that neither unification nor independence is likely for Taiwan in the foreseeable future and that the status quo should be maintained.”

The “status quo,” like the “One-China Policy,” has become another mantra whose exact meaning eludes people. While Washington claims it opposes any unilateral change to the status quo by either side, it always jumps on Taiwan and lets China off the hook.

The State Department never issued a statement rebuking Beijing’s “inflammatory” remarks toward Taiwan as it swiftly did with Mr. Chen’s. When Beijing keeps adding missiles pointed at Taiwan, an obvious unilateral change to the status quo, the State Department spokesman is nowhere to be found. The status quo, as I see it, means that Taiwan is constantly being squeezed by China. Unfortunately, instead of helping Taiwan break this impasse, Washington is siding with the aggressor. Who then can blame Mr. Chen for trying to change the status quo?

Mr. Liu is a former Washington-based columnist of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily.