|
China, Taiwan left
out of naval drill
NOT THE SAME: An official said the US did not
think it was right to invite a nation with which it does not have official
relations and was concerned at how China would react
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter
Although Taiwan and China have both been left out of the world¡¦s largest naval
exercise hosted by the US, the reasons for their exclusion are very different, a
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said yesterday.
The biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime military exercises under way
in Hawaii are the largest since their inception in 1971, with 22 countries, from
Japan to Tonga and from Russia to Chile, participating in a five-week series of
drills.
Responding to media inquiries at a routine press briefing, Bruce Linghu (¥Oª°ºa¹F),
director-general of the Department of North American Affairs at the ministry,
said the reason Taiwan was not invited to participate in the exercise seemed
clear.
The US evidently did not think the time was ripe to invite Taiwan to take part
in a multilateral mechanism like RIMPAC in the absence of official diplomatic
relations between the two countries and was concerned about how China would
react to any such invitation, Linghu said.
Nonetheless, military cooperation and strategic dialogue between Taiwan and the
US have been close, he added.
Linghu said he was not in a position to comment on why China was not invited to
take part in the exercise because it was a decision pertaining to US military
policy.
However, the reasons the US did not invite Taiwan and China ¡§were two different
things,¡¨ he said.
Asked to comment on the view expressed by some US analysts that Taiwan should be
abandoned to pursue a better US-China relationship, Linghu said that such a view
in no way represented mainstream thinking on the US¡¦ Taiwan policy.
¡§Various US government officials have characterized Taiwan as an economic and
security ally of the US at different occasions. In addition, Taiwan is one of
the countries that shares the same values as the US,¡¨ he said.
Asked about the US position on the Diaoyutai Islands (³¨³½¥x), known as the Senkaku
Islands in Japanese, Linghu said the contention by the US that the dispute falls
within the scope of Article 5 of the 1960 US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation
and Security did not in any way affect Taiwan¡¦s sovereignty claims over the
area.
Although Washington takes no position on which state has sovereignty over the
Diaoyutai Islands, it has held the position that the Diaoyutai Islands are under
-Japanese administration control since the US handed back Okinawa to Japan in
1971.
¡§The Republic of China maintains that it has sovereignty, as well as
administrative jurisdictional power, over the Diaoyutai Islands. We have clearly
expressed our position to the US and Japan since 1971 and that position has not
changed,¡¨ Linghu said.
|
