Trade with China serves our own national interest, as well as the security interests of China s neighbors. China is not our strategic partner. But neither is it our enemy. When both China and Taiwan are members of the WTO, both will need to apply global rules to their trade, including trade with one another, and the prospects for cross-straits relations should improve. Trade with China serves the economic interests of America.
China today is the world s fourth largest market for our agricultural products.
What the Chinese need to assume is that if they violate the One China Policy, the longstanding One China Policy, which has clearly said that the United States expects there to be a peaceful resolution between China and Taiwan, if they decide to use force, the United States must help Taiwan defend itself. Now, the Chinese can figure out what that means. But that s going to mean a resolute stand on my part. Previous presidents, including Bush s father, have adopted a policy called strategic ambiguity, which does not specify how the US would respond to an attack on Taiwan. Although the Taiwan Relations Act suggests that the US would help Taiwan, successive administrations have preserved this deliberate ambiguity so as not to encourage Taiwan to be bolder, making a war more likely.