US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will tell China's leaders that Washington's obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide for Taiwan's defense makes this week's passage of the "Anti-Secession" Law particularly troublesome for the US, Rice said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters accompanying her on a week-long trip to Asia, Rice said that in her meetings in Beijing later this week, she will reiterate the Bush administration's complaint that the Anti-Secession Law is not helpful in reducing cross-strait tensions.
She noted that the US has already told China that "we would have hoped that this would not have been done."
She also expressed the hope that Beijing's passage of the law will force the EU to reconsider its decision to lift its arms embargo on China.
Previewing her meetings with the Chinese, Rice said that the US' "responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act really demand that the United States make clear to both parties, China and Taiwan, that unilateral moves are just not helpful."
The US considers the Anti-Secession Law to be a "unilateral move," she said.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, enacted in 1979, the US is committed to selling Taiwan the weapons necessary for its defense against a Chinese attack, and to keep US forces in Asia in readiness to defend Taiwan, if necessary, against an attack.
In that vein, Rice said she is also concerned about increased Chinese military spending, which has grown by double-digit amounts each year at an uncertain time in cross-strait relations.
"Certainly the military spending is concerning, because it is taking place at a time when the cross-straits [sic] issue is not still resolved and in which the United States has certain commitments to a peaceful resolution of that cross-straits situation," she said.
Meanwhile, the newly-nominated assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, Christopher Hill, said Tuesday that China had "no justification" for passing a law that sanctions military action against Taiwan.
Speaking at a confirmation hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hill said Washington must be "very vigorous in making clear to the Chinese our concern," about the law.
"We don't believe there is any justification for making these unhelpful statements that suggest that there are other options out there that the Chinese can use beside peaceful dialogue" with Taiwan, he said.
"It is unthinkable to resort to military means to solve [cross-strait issues]. So clearly any Anti-Secession Law that alludes to the legality of military means is simply not helpful" in addressing the issue through dialogue, he said.
Peaceful means are "the only solution to this," said Hill, who will be the department's top specialist on East Asia in his new post. A former ambassador to South Korea, Hill was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 4 to replace James Kelly, who resigned earlier in the year. His comments at the hearing were his first on Taiwan issues since being tapped by Bush.
Rice, asked about the EU arms embargo, said that the Europeans "are examining this issue."
She said she hopes that the Anti-Secession Law "would at least remind the Europeans that there are still serious security issues in this region."
also see stroies:
Chen lashes out over China's law
Alliance sets plans for `Anti-Secession' Law protest
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
‘INCREASED VIGILANCE’: A source of infection has not yet been found for the latest two cases in a hospital cluster, which should serve as a warning, Chen Shih-chung said A total of 2,991 people associated with a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital have been put under home isolation, after an emergency expanded isolation order was issued on Sunday evening, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Fifteen people have so far tested positive in the cluster infection. The first case in the cluster (case No. 838) was reported on Jan. 12 — a doctor who treated an infected patient who had returned from the US. Contact tracing for the first 13 cases found connections to case No. 838, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who
FAMILY UNIT: The CECC warned that the eldest sister of the latest case, who also has COVID-19, visited Taoyuan’s Chungping evening market on Tuesday and Wednesday The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a domestic case of COVID-19, associated with a recent cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the latest case (No. 885) is a woman in her 50s, who is the third daughter of case No. 881, a man in his 90s. The woman is the main caregiver of her elderly father, who had been hospitalized earlier this month and was treated by a nurse (case No. 852) from Monday to Thursday last week, he said, adding that
DUBIOUS HONOR? A man in his 90s, who tested positive yesterday and is part of the Taoyuan hospital cluster, is the oldest person in Taiwan to have contracted COVID-19 Taiwan yesterday recorded six new imported cases of COVID-19 and two new domestic cases, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said, adding that the local infections are linked to the cluster at Taoyuan General Hospital, which now totals 12 cases. One of the domestic cases is a man in his 90s, who was treated earlier this month at Taoyuan General Hospital and tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday last week, four days before he was discharged, the center said in a statement. After one of the nurses on the ward was confirmed on Saturday last week to have contracted COVID-19, the
RSS