The US told China on Tuesday that it is committed to insisting Taiwan refrain from unilaterally changing the cross-strait "status quo."
The remarks were made in the first high-level face-to-face discussions about Taiwan between the two countries since President Chen Shui-bian's (
Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) held meetings with US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill in Washington on Tuesday to prepare for a planned summit visit to Washington in late April by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
In the sessions with Yang, "we reiterated the view that Taiwan needs to refrain from taking actions which can be seen as unilateral efforts to change the status quo," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters as the talks were progressing.
The US also told the Chinese that Taiwan "need[s] to move to address the issues they have with respect to China through dialogue, and that's our consistent message in our dealings with the Taiwanese," Ereli said.
That message seemed subtly different to earlier US comments on cross-strait dialogue, in which the US has focused on the need for China to deal with Chen and his government, rather than going through indirect talks with the opposition pan-blue parties.
The meetings came in the wake of reports that Dennis Wilder, the chief Chinese affairs official of the National Security Council, went to Taiwan last week to warn Chen not to abolish the NUC. Ereli and other department officials refused to confirm Wilder's trip.
One department official said only that: "We meet from time to time with Taiwan representatives, but we don't go into details about such meetings."
Ereli refused to discuss the Wilder trip.
"I'm not aware of the specific visit that you mentioned," he said in response to a reporter's question.
In the meetings on Tuesday, the two sides discussed the gamut of US-China issues, a State Department official said.
"As is usually the case when we talk to the Chinese, the Chinese raise Taiwan," the official said. "We don't have any new positions [on Taiwan], so we restate our position."
Ereli refused to speculate on how the US will react if Chen scraps the unification council and guidelines.
"I think we will be guided by our policy, which is based on the Taiwan Relations Act" and the three joint US-China communiques, he said.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration earlier this month launched a major review of its China policy amid feelings by key officials that the stance toward China should be hardened, according to a leading US Taiwan expert.
John Tkacik, a senior fellow of the Washington-based think tank the Heritage Foundation, wrote in an article in the conservative journal Weekly Standard that the first meeting held among mid-level officials on Feb. 3 was "hastily arranged" after Chen's remarks about the NUC.
The "question of the day" at the meeting was: "How does the Taiwan president's stance affect the Taiwan Strait `status quo' in the run-up to the Hu visit?"
The answer was, "Not much," administration officials concluded, according to Tkacik.
Wilder "launched the discussion with a recitation of China's unhelpful behavior in the Taiwan Strait over the past year, and urged a policy of `balance,'" Tkacik said.
While "Taiwan's infant democracy has given fits to the Bush administration ... China's behavior has been egregious," the administration concluded, according to Tkacik.
After a tough patch in US-Taiwan relations, the administration has reached a "new consensus" that on the China-Taiwan issue, "Washington should rebalance its policies back in Taiwan's direction," Tkacik said.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all