US lawmakers across party lines on Friday introduced a resolution to express concern over China’s threats toward Taiwan, focusing on peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait ahead of a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) later this month.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the resolution, led by Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons, and Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, voiced bipartisan concerns over growing threats posed by China to US national security and economic prosperity at a critical moment for US-China ties.
“The resolution calls for a continued and steady focus on strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific [region], protecting American workers and businesses from unfair economic practices, maintaining leadership in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, supporting allies and partners, preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and advancing human rights and democratic values,” the committee said.
Photo: Reuters
China has rapidly expanded and modernized its military capability, compromising freedom of navigation in vital lanes of commerce, including the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, the resolution said.
China aims to change the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait by coercion or force, including by delaying or denying third-party involvement in a contingency plan if conflict broke out, the resolution added.
The resolution said China was exercising its influence to obstruct Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.
“Communist China is the greatest threat to the American way of life... We must deter Communist China. We must stand with our partners and allies that Beijing threatens,” Ricketts said in the committee’s statement.
In the run-up to the US-China summit, “the United States Senate is sending a clear message: Remember who Xi Jinping and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] are,” Coons said in the statement. “We must stand with our allies and partners, and work with every tool of the US government to combat these aggressive practices.”
Trump is scheduled to visit China on May 14 and 15, and meet with Xi, the first summit since both leaders met in Busan, South Korea, in October last year.
Resolutions in the US Congress express lawmakers’ positions or opinions on specific issues and do not require the president’s signature, so they have no legal effect.
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