"It is my hope," he said, "that increasingly warmer cross-strait relations will ultimately transcend the need for the Taiwan Relations Act."
Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, who is the top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and a sponsor of the bill, described Taiwan's democratization as "sort of the American dream in foreign policy."
Lantos, a holocaust survivor, stressed the US defense commitment to Taiwan.
"To ensure that the Taiwanese people are not forced into an unwise deal with Beijing, we must continue to support Taiwan's legitimate defense need, and the leadership of Taiwan must devote sufficient funds to defending their country," he said.
RSS