US arms sales to Taiwan are the main obstacle to developing Sino-US relations and should be re-examined if ties are to make progress, a senior Chinese official was quoted as saying yesterday.
Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong (周文重) said other obstacles are the "politicization" by the US of human rights issues and its interference in Hong Kong's internal affairs.
"These issues have created impediments to the growth of Sino-US relations," the China Daily quoted Zhou as saying to 70 experts and academics from China and the United States at a conference.
He also said the US presidential election had complicated the momentum of Sino-US relations, without specifying what he meant.
On Monday President George W. Bush's Republican party warned that the US would not tolerate any Chinese military moves against Taiwan. It also expressed "profound disagreements" over China's human rights record.
Zhou, in charge of affairs relating to the Americas, Oceania, Hong Kong and Taiwan, said arms sales would not only seriously undermine Sino-US ties but harm the interests of the US.
"We're especially concerned about the sales of large quantities of advanced weapons to Taiwan and enhancement of military ties between the United States and Taiwan," he said.
"In so doing, Taiwan independence forces will be emboldened to go down the road to Taiwan's independence as far as possible."
"Currently, what is most important for the United States is to translate into reality its commitment to the one-China policy and opposition to Taiwan's independence. In particular to stop upgrading relations with Taiwan and selling it advanced weapons," Zhou said.
Zhou was addressing the China Reform Forum, a think-tank of China's Central Party School and the US Rand Corporation, a non-profit research organization.
He quoted late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's (鄧小平) remarks on Taiwan, saying that if the issue was mishandled, it "could become an explosive issue, and the Chinese people cannot and will not swallow such a bitter pill."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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