US President George W. Bush Saturday sent a strong message to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (
"The president pressed on our concern over the fact that there are so many missiles on the mainland that are pointed at Taiwan. He urged the Chinese side to act with restraint and prudence. It was the standard formulation that we have used in the past and it remains our consistent policy," said outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powel.
PHOTO: YEH CHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Bush also made the point that neither side should take unilateral actions, which might prejudge the ultimate peaceful resolution of this issue, Powell said.
Powell made the remarks Saturday afternoon in response to a media inquiry about the Chinese authorities' earlier interpretation of the US government's stance on cross-strait policy during the closed-door meeting between Bush and Hu in the morning.
The Chinese foreign ministry claimed that Bush had specifically told Hu that the US government will not send any "inconsistent messages" to Taiwan.
During a White House briefing about the meeting in the afternoon, senior US officials told the media that Hu said Beijing understood the importance of cross-strait talks, suggesting the possibility of the resumption of a cross-strait dialogue.
In addition to reiterating the "one China" policy, three communiques and Taiwan Relations Act, US officials said that Bush also told Hu that he understood the sensitivity of the cross-strait issue and that the message the US government sent out to Taiwan was clear. Bush made the remark in response to Hu's request to jointly solve the problem of Taiwan independence.
Hu also took much time to explain the "Taiwan problem" to Bush in detail, according to China's foreign ministry.
"The president told US President Bush that Taiwan has stubbornly been engaging in independence movements and refused to accept the `1992 consensus.' Its so-called constitutional reform is merely a separatist action aimed at severing Taiwan from its motherland," Chinese authorities said.
To solve the "Taiwan problem," Hu told Bush that China has insisted on peaceful resolution and the "one country, two systems" policy to reach the ultimate goal of unification.
"Taiwan independence will only lead to instability across the Taiwan Strait," Chinese authorities quoted Hu as saying. "We hope the US doesn't send any wrong messages to support Taiwan independence."
Commenting on the Bush-Hu meeting and Chinese authorities' one-sided interpretation of Bush's remarks, William Yih (
"We hope China can accurately understand the goodwill gestures and take advantage of the opportunity to seek a peaceful resolution to the cross-strait issue," he said.
Before Bush held talks with Hu in Chile Saturday the US had assured Taiwan that there would be no changes in its policy toward cross-strait relations.
"US authorities had briefed us on their basic policy line ahead of the Bush-Hu talks on the sidelines of the ongoing informal leadership meeting of the APEC forum in Santiago the previous day, " Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Michel Lu (
Commenting on the reports, Lu said the reported content of the Bush-Hu talks didn't go beyond what Taiwan had expected.
"From the pre-summit US briefings, we already knew that the US policy toward cross-strait relations would not be changed," he said.
Also see story:
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
RSS