Sat, May 28, 2005 page1

• US urges Beijing to seek `reconciliation'

  NEW TERM, SAME MESSAGE The assistant secretary for East Asian affairs told a House subcommittee that Washington is pushing for dialogue, not confrontation

  • By Charles Snyder / STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
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  The US State Department's new top Asian affairs policymaker has called on China to seek "reconciliation" with Taiwan through dialogue with the government, rather than basing its Taiwan policy on its "Anti-Secession" Law and the law's provision calling for military action as an ultimate solution to cross-strait issues.

  Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill made the comment in testimony at a hearing of the House subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific dealing with US policy toward Northeast Asia.

  But in using a new State Department term -- reconciliation -- in Washington's Taiwan-policy lexicon, Hill emphasized that he was not enunciating a new cross-strait policy but underscoring existing US policy in favor of dialogue.

  "I think it's important that on the `one China' policy, China should not just act on it as a matter of legality [through the Anti-Secession Law], but also as a matter of reconciliation," Hill said. "I think China should think about how to achieve reconciliation with this population of 23 million people, this democracy of Taiwan. And if China can think of it not just as exerting a legal right, but also as taking an act of reconciliation, they would see the value of engaging the elected authorities of Taiwan as well. And we encourage them to do so."

  "I am not making any new policy," Hill told reporters afterwards, discussing the recent trips to China of Nationalist Chinese Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), "except to say that if you deal with the opposition and you deal with the government, you are truly reaching out in a very important way. And that's why I used the word reconciliation."

  Hill, however, said that in meetings with US officials, the Chinese have not indicated that they are ready to meet with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) or his government.

  He said the US regards the Lien and Soong visits as "encouraging, positive steps, and, like all steps, if they can be followed by other steps, it would be even better, and that the other step would be to deal with the elected government of Taiwan."

  Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Richard Lawless raised some eyebrows during his testimony when he seemed to talk favorably about Taiwan's unification with China.

  "China maintains that it seeks peaceful unification with Taiwan, and we welcome that," Lawless said in a presentation given without a prepared text or notes.

  Asked about that afterwards by a reporter, he clarified that he mean to say, "a peaceful resolution of the issue."

  Lawless is known to be among the strongest supporters of Taiwan in the administration.

  In his testimony, Lawless warned about the dangers of the Chinese military buildup aimed at Taiwan.

  The US, he said, is "watching carefully and we cannot ignore the dangers inherent in China's current military buildup, especially as it affects the security of Taiwan. Relations between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan remain on an unpredictable trajectory. The possible use of force or coercion to resolve cross-strait differences remains a threat to regional stability, and these have global implications.

  "Beijing's refusal to renounce the use of force as an option, and its military modernization, do raise questions of its commitment to see a peaceful resolution of this issue," he said.

  He also defended continued US sales of weapons to Taiwan as directed by the Taiwan Relations Act.

  "We have repeatedly said to China, `please consider that you are driving the equation, not necessarily the Taiwanese. If you do put 600 missiles off the shores of Taiwan and decline to renounce the use of force to reunify, then you are creating the situation where the Taiwanese feel threatened and where our Taiwan Relations Act comes into play,'" he said.

  "Absent direct dialogue and absent China's willingness to renounce the use of force in correcting the situation between these two entities, we have no choice than to abide by the law of the land," he said.

  He refused to pass judgment on the Lien-Soong China visits, though.

  "We are dealing with a democracy. Taiwan is a functioning democracy. What the people of Taiwan choose to do, and their political parties choose to do in the final instance is their decision," Lawless said.
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