Leading members of Congress have written to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to stress the importance of the “six assurances” that former US president Ronald Reagan gave to Taiwan.
The letter is the result of considerable discomfort felt by members of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus after Panetta revealed recently that China had been informed in advance of a public announcement of new arms sales to Taipei.
There is widespread fear on Capitol Hill that informing Beijing before a public announcement could eventually lead to consultation about the actual weapons being sold.
The members of Congress say that the six assurances should be looked upon as a second cornerstone — after the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) — of US policy toward Taiwan.
Their letter says: “We noted that, during your recent trip to Asia, you commented on China’s reaction to the September 2011 US arms sales to Taiwan.”
“While expressing appreciation for Beijing’s ‘professional and diplomatic’ reaction, you stated that the [US President Barack] Obama Administration had ‘given the Chinese a heads up as to what was going to take place,’” the letter says. “While notifying the Chinese of -decisions regarding US arms sales to Taiwan does not explicitly violate the six assurances, we hope that such notification has not and will not lead to any consultations with the Chinese government prior to a decision to sell arms to Taiwan.”
The letter was signed by Democrats Shelley Berkley and Gerald Connolly, and Republicans Phil Gingrey and Mario Diaz-Balart.
All four are co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus.
The six assurances, made by Reagan to then-Taiwan president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in July 1982, are: The US will not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan; the US will not hold prior consultations with China on arms sales to Taiwan; the US will not play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing; the US will not revise the TRA; the US will not change its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan; and the US will not exert pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with China.
“Along with the TRA, these six assurances form the basis of the overall policy approach that the US has taken toward Taiwan over 30 years. It is a policy that has successfully maintained peace in the Taiwan Strait, while providing for Taiwan’s economic prosperity and political transformation, both of which are to the enormous benefit of the US,” the letter says.
Coen Blaauw, an official with the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, said: “This was a good opportunity to remind Secretary Panetta about the six assurances. They really are the second cornerstone of US relations with Taiwan and of critical importance.”
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS