The man tapped to be the new US deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick has slammed China's planned anti-secession law, saying that it move in the "other direction" of US goals for a peaceful settlement of cross-strait issues.
Zoellick made his comment in response to a question by a senator during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee evaluating his nomination by President George W. Bush to be the next No. 2 official at the State Department.
It was the strongest statement in opposition to the anti-secession law that any senior US official has made since Beijing announced plans to enact the law last December.
Other US officials, while expressing various degrees of dissatisfaction with the planned law, have refused to expressly oppose it, saying they had not yet seen the text of the law and thus could not comment officially.
Zoellick's remarks are believed to be the first by any senior US official to condemn the planned law in certain terms.
"Our goal is for the parties to work out [cross-strait relations] peacefully, in an acceptable way to people on both sides of the Strait," Zoellick said in response to a question by Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican.
"And in that sense, we encourage a dialogue and we certainly discourage actions [which] move in the other direction, with the anti-secession law," he said.
Zoellick, who is now the US trade representative, also praised the recent agreement between Taipei and Beijing on Lunar New Year's cross-strait flights.
"There have been some steps between China and Taiwan recently in terms of transportation links and others that I hope will move in a positive direction," he said.
He added that Washington remains committed to a "one China" policy and the three joint US-China communiques, "and the president is committed to the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act."
Asked about Zoellick's statements, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the anti-secession law did not come up when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (
However, Boucher said, Washington "has been quite clear that we don't think either side should take unilateral steps that try to define the situation further or push it in one direction or another."
He added that since the law was first discussed by Beijing, both former secretary of state Colin Powell and the US embassy in Beijing had raised the issue.
"The Chinese know quite clearly what our views are," he said.
While Zoellick is expected to win easy confirmation by the Senate as the next deputy secretary of state to replace Richard Armitage, who has retired, the fate of other positions of interest to East Asia is still up in the air.
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific James Kelly retired at the end of last month and no replacement has been named.
Chris Hill, the ambassador to South Korea, was widely expected to replace Kelly, but Boucher on Monday announced only that Hill would sit in for Kelly as the head of the US delegation to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons development.
Hill will also continue in the South Korea post, the spokesman said.
Kelly's temporary replacement is Evans Revere, who had been Kelly's principle deputy.
Other senior State Department officials, including John Bolton, the under-secretary for arms control and international security, and one of Taiwan's most prominent supporters in the administration, remains in his post despite rumors that he would quit to join the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Earlier reports said that Rice had passed him over for the deputy secretary slot that eventually went to Zoellick.
Meanwhile, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Randall Schriver, whose responsibilities include relations with China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, remains in place with no indication when he might retire, as earlier speculated.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS