The US should stick to the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which guides its relations with Taiwan, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright said on Wednesday.
Albright made the comments at a meeting of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs reviewing the foreign policy of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
She said that she was working as a congressional liaison in the US National Security Council when US-China relations were normalized 40 years ago and she visited Taiwan before the change.
One of the major developments during that period was the enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, she said, adding that it is a “very important piece of legislation” that should be maintained.
She was responding to US Representative Steve Chabot, cochair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, who asked for her comments on Taiwan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has said that he would not renounce the use of force to achieve unification with Taiwan and China has been building military outposts in the South China Sea, Chabot said.
In light of the Chinese threat against Taiwan, the US needs to stand up for what the act says and make it very clear that its relationship with Taiwan is an important one, Albright said.
“We would like to see some kind of peaceful way of dealing with our ‘one China’ policy ... [but] we cannot forget what our obligations are” under the TRA, she added.
The US should think about what it can learn from China’s behavior, she said, adding that she is concerned about the US’ role in the world.
“I’d hate to see the US withdraw from the international scene because of the Chinese filling the vacuum and to have Xi Jinping all of a sudden be the proponent of climate change and multilateralism,” she said.
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