The Democratic Progressive Party's liaison officer in Washington, Michael Fonte, has taken issue with the Republican Party's revised description of the US "one China" policy, calling it an "egregious error" that misrepresents Washington's long-term position.
In the platform approved on Monday by the party's presidential nominating convention in New York, the party asserted that "the United States government's policy is that there is one China," a subtle but important change from its 2000 platform, which said that "America has acknowledged the view that there is one China."
While the new document qualifies its statement by asserting that the policy is "reflected in" the three communiques signed by Washington and Beijing in 1972, 1978 and 1982, along with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Fonte told the Taipei Times that the statement is still incorrect.
"It is not US policy," he said. "US policy is that we acknowledge the Chinese position that there is one China and Taiwan is a part of China," he said. "While we acknowledge the Chinese position, we demand, and our policy is, that there should be a peaceful, mutually acceptable resolution of the issue of what `one China' is."
He called the difference in wording between the 2000 and 2004 platforms a "very important distinction," because, despite the qualification, "the statement itself is pretty flat: there is one China. That is not the US position."
Fonte noted the criticism the Democratic Party received in July when its platform omitted any reference to the Taiwan Relations Act, and he called for detractors to also criticize the Republicans for its "one China" statement.
"Democrats in certain quarters of the press have been roundly denounced by some groups for not saying anything about the [Taiwan Relations Act]. Well, if you're going to do that, to be even-handed you have to point out the fact that [the Republican statement] is not an error of omission -- it's an error of commission," Fonte said.
Asked why he thought the change had been made, he said he could only "speculate" that "somebody really blew it," since the platforms are carefully thought through before being adopted.
"I don't understand how they could have made such an egregious error," he said.
The Bush administration has never clearly defined its "one China" policy, although it has steadfastly defended it.
The administration's most authoritative and extensive recent statement of policy came on April 21, in testimony by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia James Kelly before a House International Affairs Committee hearing on the 25th anniversary of the Act.
In his written testimony, Kelly said, the US "remains committed to our one China policy," based on the three Communiques and the Act.
But when asked to define the policy, Kelly was non-committal.
"In my testimony," he allowed, "I made the point `our one China,' and I didn't really define it, and I'm not sure I very easily could define it."
"I can tell you what it is not. It is not the one-China policy or the one-China principle that Beijing suggests, and it may not be the definition that some would have in Taiwan," he said.
"But it does convey a meaning of solidarity of a kind among the people on both sides of the straits [sic] that has been our policy for a very long time." he added.
He also conceded that a "one China" policy has a "degree of contrast" with the evolution of democracy in Taiwan and the emergence of a sense of Taiwanese identity.
More uncertainty was added to the debate in June when the prestigious US-China Economic and Security Review Commission called for Congress and the administration to review the policy "given the changing realities in China and Taiwan."
But the panel never defined the policy and limited its recommendations primarily to a review of US defense assistance to Taiwan and efforts to break Taiwan out of international isolation.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods