Taiwan declines to comment on call to revisit one-China policy

Jan 18, 2017 Medical Comments Off on Taiwan declines to comment on call to revisit one-China policy

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Taipei- Taiwan's Presidential Office said Wednesday that the government has "no comment" on the views expressed in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal Monday that called for the U.S. to revisit the "one-China" policy and form closer military alliance with Taiwan.

"It is high time to revisit the "one-China policy" and decide what the US thinks it means, 45 years after the Shanghai Communique," according to the article written by John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Donald Trump has said the policy is negotiable. Negotiation should not mean Washington gives and Beijing takes," Bolton wrote.

"We need strategically coherent priorities, reflecting not 1972 but 2017, encompassing more than trade and monetary policy, and specifically including Taiwan," he said. "Let's see how an increasingly belligerent China responds."

Bolton then goes on to suggest that the U.S. enhance its East Asia military posture by increasing military sales to Taiwan and by stationing military personnel and assets in the country.

In response, Taiwan's Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (???) told reporters Wednesday that the government has noticed "a wide variety of ideas" on Asia-Pacific policies being put forward recently by U.S. scholars and former U.S. officials, but the Presidential Office has "no comment" on those thoughts.

In the article, Bolton said a closer military relationship with Taiwan would be a "significant step" toward securing core American interests in East and Southeast Asia, such as guaranteeing freedom of the seas, deterring military adventurism and preventing unilateral territorial annexations.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel

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