The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said it has taken note of a statement by the US government encouraging Taipei and Beijing to continue their efforts to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
“We acknowledge that the US encourages the two sides to continue to engage in dialogue and would work on it,” DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said. “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the shared responsibility of the two sides, and the DPP will continue to work on it.”
Wang thanked the US for keeping its promises as stated in the Taiwan Relations Act.
He was responding to remarks made by US National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Dan Kritenbrink in a news conference on Thursday, prior to a meeting between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
On a question related to Taiwan, Kritenbrink said he expected the issue of Taiwan to be raised in the meeting, because it almost always comes up in any meeting between the two presidents.
“What I am confident will happen, if and when that issue is raised, is that President Obama will make very clear that we remain committed to our ‘one China’ policy based on both the Three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act,” Kritenbrink said.
Under the act, Washington agrees to provide Taiwan the means to defend itself, including arms sales. In the Three Joint Communiques, signed by the US and the People’s Republic of China as the two sides normalized relations in the 1970s and 1980s, both sides agreed to respect each other’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the US formally acknowledged the desire of Chinese for a unified and undivided China.
“Our fundamental national interest, of course, is in the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We have encouraged both counterparts in Beijing and in Taipei to continue that work as the new DPP administration under Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) comes into power in Taipei” on May 20, Kritenbrink added.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
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