US President George W. Bush says one of the key aims of US-China relations is maintaining stability in East Asia as a way of ensuring a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue.
Bush made the comment in a press conference on Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden as part of an answer to a question about overall US-China relations.
Regarding Taiwan, Bush said the US-China relationship "is one of helping to solve [the Taiwan] problem as to keeping stability in the region so that eventually there will be a peaceful solution to [the Taiwan] issue."
The statement, which Bush did not elaborate on, came at the end of a short passage in which Bush addressed the Taiwan issue in this way
"Obviously there's tension [in US-China relations] about Taiwan and that we have to deal with, and I made my position very clear and very consistent about Taiwan. The Taiwanese understand my position. The Chinese understand my position," he said.
Experts said they did not feel that the statement represented any change in overall US policy toward cross-strait issues.
"I would not read a whole lot into it," said Bonnie Glaser, a specialist in US-China relations with the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University.
Was the president saying that the US and China should join in settling the Taiwan issue?
"No," Glaser said.
"There's been an effort by the administration to encourage Beijing to deal with the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] government, the duly elected government. If you took the statement out of context, you could interpret it to mean the president is saying the US should cooperate with China to solve the Taiwan issue," she said. But that "would not be consistent with anything he has said before."
"I would not interpret [the statement] as meaning the US wants to work with China to revolve the Taiwan issue. Taiwan is an important player in resolving this problem. It's not something for just Beijing and Washington to resolve," she said.
The main thing, Glaser said, is that Bush feels "China should in no circumstances deal with Taiwan by coercive means; that any approach to Taiwan has to be peaceful."
"Clearly the president's objective in East Asia is stability in the region," said John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation. "What the president said indicated to me that holding out an eventual peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue is part of a strategy that keeps stability in the region."
"His concern is keeping stability in the region. He's trying to figure out a way to keep that, and his idea is holding out the eventual promise of a peaceful solution [for Taiwan] is key to keeping stability in the region," Tkacik said.
"It is not that he envisions a peaceful solution any time soon, but that there is a need for there to be a prospect of a peaceful solution eventually," Tkacik said.
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