The US rejects
calls for new Taiwan policy
MOUNTING
PRESSURE: Washington says it satisfied with the existing
diplomatic framework which governs the triangular relationship
between it, Taipei and Beijing
2002/01/04
By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
The administration of George W. Bush has rejected
suggestions that the time has come for the US and China to write
a new joint communique to update the Washing-ton-Taipei-Beijing
relationship, one that would reflect political developments
in Taipei in recent years.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the "existing
framework" of Washington's relations with Taiwan and China
is sufficient and that the administration will "stick with
that for the moment."
He was responding to an article in Wednesday's Washington Post
by former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke that said
a "fourth communique" is needed because of the changes
that have occurred since the last joint communique was signed
nearly 19 years ago.
Three communiques, signed in 1972, 1978 and 1982, form the
basis of US policy toward Taiwan, along with the Taiwan Relations
Act of 1979.
The 1972 communique, signed in Shanghai
during former president Richard Nixon's landmark trip to China,
commits the US to a "one China" principle and set
the stage for the withdrawal of US forces from Taiwan.
The 1978 communique, anticipating
the US switch of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing
the following Jan. 1, reiterated a "one China" policy
but set the stage for Washington and Taiwan to retain "unofficial"
ties. As assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration,
Holbrooke oversaw the negotiations that led to this communique.
The 1982 communique reaffirmed the
earlier communiques, and pledged Washington to gradually reduce
arms sales to Taiwan if Beijing acted to "create conditions
conducive" to that aim. That communique followed a difficult
period in US-China relations in which former president Ronald
Reagan flirted with upgrading relations with Taiwan.
"An enormous amount has happened since then," including
Taiwan's democratization, Holbrooke said, that "have created
new circumstances not envisioned by the drafters" of the
earlier documents.
"It is time for Washington and Beijing to negotiate a
fourth communique, one that would address these new issues and
update the relationship based on a new realism," he said.
This "will present some obvious difficulties, although
none as great as those that faced the drafters of the first
two."
"At home, there will be voices calling for changes in
the old formula on Taiwan -- something that, I believe, would
be possible on the margins but not the core issue of independence,"
he said.
While another communique might not head off future confrontations
with China, it would help build a stronger relationship "and
would perhaps help Taiwan open a more productive dialogue with
the mainland," he said.
In addition to Taiwan's democratization,
Holbrooke cited the end of the Cold War, the Tiananmen Square
massacre and later US-China frictions, Hong Kong's reversion
to Chinese control, China's entry into the WTO, and recent crackdowns
by Beijing on people in Tibet.
Boucher said a new document is not needed.
"The existing framework, we think, allows us to pursue
the goals that we need to pursue with China. And we'll stick
with that for the moment," he told reporters at his daily
press briefing.
Last year, another former senior US diplomat, J. Stapleton
Roy, opened what has become a so-far muted drive for a new communique,
using much the same arguments as Holbrooke's in advocating that
Washington consider a new document.
"The Shanghai Communique stated that all Chinese on both
sides of the Strait believe there is one China and that Taiwan
is part of China," Roy, the former US ambassador in Beijing,
told reporters last October. "You can't make that same
statement at the present time because of the fact that you no
longer have a government in Taiwan whose legitimacy rests on
the `one China' principle."
The communique states in part, "The
United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of
the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan
is a part of China. The United States government does not challenge
that position."
