US President George W. Bush told Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao (
Bush took advantage of a face-to-face Oval Office discussion with Hu to reiterate America's strong support for Taiwan after Hu "reiterated [China's] traditional concerns on Taiwan," the official, who took part in the half-hour meeting, said on the condition his name not be used.
PHOTO: AP
The meeting came on the second day of a two-day Washington visit during which Hu made the issue of Taiwan his main concern, raising it extensively in several of his meetings with US policymakers. Officially, both sides remained mum on what was said at the meetings.
Hu expressed concerns to Bush over what Beijing sees as Washington's increasingly close ties to Taiwan and changes in long-term US policy under the Bush administration.
"Our response was, `Bear with us here. We don't think we've changed our policy at all. The `one-China' policy is still in place. We still support the three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act,'" the US official said. "But frankly, what's happening in southeastern China -- the military buildup there -- is what forces us to look at providing greater military support to Taiwan. That's a threat that we have to acknowledge," the source quoted the president as saying.
In his only public comment after the Bush meeting, Hu told reporters "the meeting was quite good."
The US official's read-out on the meeting conformed to pre-meeting statements by the White House.
"I think the president can be expected to reiterate America's long-standing position toward Taiwan, which is very well known," presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters early in the day.
"That is, we seek a peaceful resolution of any differences between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, that we do not wish to see provocation on either side of the Taiwan Strait in this context, and in conformity with the Taiwan Relations Act, we will conduct all our affairs with China," he said
During what was billed as a major policy address at a dinner hosted by eight private groups that promote US-China ties, Hu warned about the US sale of increasingly sophisticated weapons to Taiwan.
"Selling sophisticated weapons to Taiwan or upgrading US-Taiwan relations is inconsistent with the commitments [to `one China' and the three communiques], serving neither peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait nor the China-US relationship and the common interests of the two countries," he said.
He also said that, "If any trouble occurs on the Taiwan question, it would be difficult for China-US relations to move forward, and a retrogression may even occur."
In addition to the meeting with Bush, Hu held a 45-minute meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Hu is the highest-ranking Chinese official to be received at the Pentagon in many years.
During the meeting, the two agreed to move toward the resumption of expanding military-to-military relations, which were broken off in the wake of the EP-3 surveillance plane incident over Hainan Island last April.
The two sides "will take some action to resume military exchanges," Hu told reporters after the Pentagon meeting. However the assessment by US officials seemed more tentative.
"We're drawing up plans. We're still in the discussion stages. I think there's an intention at some point to move forward," a senior administration official told the Taipei Times, indicating that any movement might be slower than Hu indicated.
Rumsfeld also brought up concerns over proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a Pentagon spokesman said. Taiwan came up during the meeting, but apparently was not discussed in great detail.
Earlier in the day, Hu spent about two hours with Vice President Dick Cheney. There was a 45-minute meeting in the White House, followed by an hour-long lunch at the vice president's residence and a 15-minute personal meeting between the two.
Taiwan, the "war on terrorism," weapons proliferation and economic developments in both countries were raised during those talks, a spokesman for Cheney said. Cheney accepted an invitation from Hu to visit China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Xiyue (章啟月) told reporters. Details will be worked out later, she said.
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