Taiwan question knotted up in US internal politics

• Source: Global Times
• [22:22 February 01 2010]
• Comments

I once interviewed Chas W. Freeman, who was one of the major drafters of the US-PRC Joint Communiqué of August 17, 1982, in which the US agreed to gradually reduce and eventually halt arms sales to Taiwan. He said that even in this Communiqué, the issue of arms sales to Taiwan was just put aside instead of being fundamentally solved. Freeman, a veteran American civil servant, supports solving the question of arms sales to Taiwan.
 
Thus he was considered as part of the "Pro-China faction" and was later excluded and edged out by the "Pro-Taiwan faction." The unsolved problem of arms sales is the biggest regret in Freeman's diplomatic career. He said, "This issue is still a heavy burden on US-China relations."
 
I asked him whether he had any suggestions he could give to solve the question. Freeman shook his head, "No. Both the approaches of shelving disputes and seeking common ground are double-edged swords." Indeed, between the pressures of realist foreign policy and domestic party politics, without major and unlikely adjustments of US strategies toward China, the question of arms sales to Taiwan still has no answer. 
 
The author is a Washington-based Chinese journalist. forum@globaltimes.com.cn