The US will not accept Chinese President Jiang Zemin's (
If there is any such deal, it is up to Beijing and Taipei to work it out on their own, said the official , talking to a small group of reporters on the basis of anonymity at an impromptu press briefing in Washington on Wednesday.
The official was believed to be the first high-level member of the Bush administration to confirm that Jiang made the offer with serious intentions during his meeting with President Bush at Bush's ranch near Crawford, Texas on Oct. 25.
The offer was first revealed by the head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Chen Chien-jen (
He told the lawmakers that Washington would not lower its military alert status in Taiwan, since China has long-range, mid-range and other short-range missiles that could be deployed if China reduced the estimated 400 missiles it has deployed near its coast opposite Taiwan.
While US officials since then have indicated that Jiang made such a missiles-for-arms-sales gesture, they stressed that they viewed it as a casual offer, not a serious proposal.
But the senior official who spoke to reporters on Wednesday confirmed that the Bush administration recognized the offer as a serious one and noted that China has been making such proposals for some time before the Crawford summit in meetings with US officials.
But the official appeared to suggest that Washington had washed its hands of the issue.
He said that since the Jiang offer involved military buildups between China and Taiwan, it would be up to Taipei and Beijing to negotiate and resolve the issue.
That comment would seem aimed at fears that the US might be willing to strike a deal with China on the cross-strait military situation as a way to assure China's continued support for the US-led war on terrorism.
The US official said that any missiles-for-arms-sales deal would violate the so-called "six assurances" issued to Taiwan by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 when he signed a US-China communique that pledged Washington to reduce arms sales to Taiwan.
Those assurance said that Washington would not set a deadline for stopping arms sales or discuss arms sales with China. They also pledge that Washington would not revise the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that underlies US-Taiwan relations, force Taiwan to negotiate with China, or act as a go-between in relations between both sides of the Strait.
The Jiang proposal came on the eve of an intensification of US-China interaction which has raised bilateral relations to their highest level since the Bush administration took office.
Last week, the two sides held their first high-level military consultations during the Bush presidency, with the deputy chief of the Chinese general staff, General Xiong Guangkai (
This week, the first human rights dialogue in years took place in Beijing and US Pacific forces commander Admiral Thomas Fargo traveled to China, the highest level such visit since the Bush election.
The activity is in marked contrast to Bush's election campaign description of China as a strategic competitor, and the bad blood in the wake of the EP-3 reconnaissance-plane incident in April last year.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS