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China slams US Congress backing for Taiwan ties

"This is a gross intereference in China's internal affairs and sends a mistaken signal to Taiwan independence forces."

Kong Quan, spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry

China yesterday angrily condemned a proposed US congressional resolution to normalize relations with Taiwan and demanded the Bush administration block the bill.

"This is a gross intereference in China's internal affairs and sends a mistaken signal to Taiwan independence forces," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said. "The Chinese side expresses it strong dissatisfaction and staunch opposition to this."

"We demand that the US side be fully aware of the severe danger of this motion, seriously honor its commitments to the `one China' policy and take concrete actions to prevent the resolution in the US Congress from passing," Kong said.

While citing the US administration's commitment to the "one China" policy, Kong also called on Congress to "do more things that are beneficial to Sino-US ties and the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits."

John Tkacik, a China expert at the Heritage Foundation, said he did not expect the resolution to get very far but added that it could stimulate "an important debate that the Bush administration desperately hope to avoid and is certain to upset China."

He said the resolution could be a reaction to Beijing's proposed anti-secession law, which analysts say could create the legal basis for China to take Taiwan by force or pressure it to accept reunification.

"There are those in Congress who are willing to open up a reconsideration of the one China policy if Beijing insists on pushing the issue," Tkacik said.

He said that under the "one China" policy devised by the Carter administration, the US acknowledged Beijing's position that Taiwan was part of China.

Warren Christopher, the then US deputy secretary of state, during a Senate tesimony emphasized that it was not necessarily the US position, Tkacik said.

"Consequently, the `one China' policy has became a bumper sticker that tends to be what China wants it to be while the United States has desperately tried to avoid any kind of definition of the policy," he said.
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