LETTER TO THE EDITOR - NEW YORK TIMES

March 27, 2000
 

One-China Fallacy

To the Editor:

According to a March 20 editorial, "preserving the one-China formula remains the surest basis for maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Two separate political entities have existed since 1949.

Each has exercised the rights of sovereignty, like holding elections (bogus in one case) and collecting taxes.

The "one China" concept was false from the instant Henry A. Kissinger seized upon it as a convenient ruse.

The cost of this Faustian bargain is becoming apparent. China threatens to use force to annex Taiwan, asserting that the United States, having accepted the one-China principle, has no right to interfere in its internal affairs.

A vacillating Clinton administration declares its continued adherence to a patent falsehood.

This dangerous myth is the real threat to stability.

JUNE TEUFEL DREYER
Coral Gables, Fla., March 20, 2000

The writer is a professor of political science at the University of Miami.