The US provided Taiwan with full and complete briefings of all meetings held with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) during his just completed week-long visit.
In addition, the US said that it had in no way compromised or changed its policies toward Taiwan and would continue to sell arms to Taipei.
Asked to clarify US policy, a senior US Department of State official said recently that Washington regularly tells China “we are fully committed to our ‘one China’ policy based on the three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act. This is an approach, a consistent approach, that has provided stability in US-China relations for decades and through many administrations here in the US.”
Asked about Xi’s visit in an interview with the Taipei Times, Representative to the US Jason Yuan (袁健生) praised US officials for keeping him fully informed.
“Xi Jinping’s visit was very important for US-China relations and it was also important for Taiwan to know exactly what happened,” he said. “I have been fully briefed about Xi’s meetings with the [US] president [Barack Obama], the vice president [Joe Biden] and the secretary of state [Hillary Rodham Clinton].”
“I have also been briefed by friends on Capitol Hill, from both the [US] House [of Representatives] and Senate,” Yuan said, adding: “As a future leader of China, Xi raised China’s so-called core interests while the US emphasized human rights, trade and currency.”
“They did touch upon Taiwan. Taiwan and Tibet are always the core interest of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] side, but the US has its position on Taiwan and Tibet and made that clear,” Yuan said.
Taiwan had to be very careful about high-level visits to the US from China, he said.
“We are concerned about Chinese exchanges with the United States. I have to watch very closely how exchanges between the leaders of China and the US are conducted,” he said.
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