In the first official US-Sino contact since President George W. Bush's inauguration on Saturday, newly installed Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined the US govern-ment's Taiwan policy to China's ambassador in Washington, Li Zhaoxing (
"They sort of discussed in general outline some of the issues in US-China relations," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. He described the meeting as a farewell to Li, who is scheduled to return to Beijing later this month. One of the messages was that "we don't see China as an inevitable foe," the department spokesman said.
"Obviously, the issue of Taiwan and arms sales did come up," Boucher said.
Powell defended Washington's arms sales policy to Taiwan during the meeting, Boucher said. Powell "said that we would follow the [three] communiques, we believed in `one China,' but that we would also meet the obligations that we have and the commitment to meet the legitimate defensive needs of Taiwan," Boucher said.
Boucher refused to say whether Taiwan's request for AEGIS-equipped destroyers came up during the meeting, but said that no individual topic was discussed in any detail.
"I think the Chinese position is known on the issue of Taiwan arms sales. I think the positions that Secretary Powell stated in the meeting were the positions that he stated in his testimony [at his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing last week], and that's the basic message of the meeting -- that we realized there are issues, we're going to handle them in accordance with our obligations, with the communiques," Boucher said.
The issue of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act did not come up "specifically," Boucher said. Powell told his Senate committee confirmation hearing that the Bush administration has not decided whether or not to support the bill, and indicated that it might make a decision within the next few weeks.
Powell's visit to the embassy was not announced beforehand, although both the State Department and White House had made a point of announcing pending meetings with other foreign officials.
The recent self-immolation of five Falun Gong followers in Bei-jing's Tiananmen Square did not come up in the discussions, Boucher said, although the general issue of China's crackdown on the sect did.
Nevertheless, Boucher used the self-immolation incident to warn Beijing of Washington's displeasure with the crackdown on Falun Gong.
"I would renew our condemnation" of the crackdown and "we call on China to release all those detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising their internationally recognized rights," Boucher said.
The Bush administration's plan to build a national missile defense system and a theater missile defense system also came up in the meeting, but Boucher gave no details.
The issue of whether Washington will push for a resolution condemning China's human rights violations at the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva this April did not come up. However, Powell "made it clear that we would raise human rights issues with China and we would raise them frankly," Boucher said.
Boucher said that Powell's message to Li was "one of tolerance and rule of law."
Li is scheduled to return to China later this month after three years on the job in Washington.
He is expected to be replaced by Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
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