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Click
here for the letter
For
Immediate Release
October 3, 2008
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS URGE SECRETARY RICE TO STRIKE POLITICAL
PRO-CHINA REFERENCES FROM ANNUAL TECHNICAL STATE DEPARTMENT
CABLE
In
a letter dated September 28, 2008, eight House of
Representatives including co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan
Caucus, Reps. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Steve Chabot (R-OH) who
spearheaded the effort, urge the State Department to strike the
pro-China political references form the cable that the State
Department sends annually to all its overseas missions and
embassies prior to the annual celebration of the Republic of
China's October 10 National Holiday aka “Double Ten.”
Since 1979, the U.S. State Department has sent an annual
unclassified memo to all its overseas missions presenting its
diplomats with technical hints and tips on how to participate in
Taiwan's Double Ten celebrations.
But suddenly, in 2007 the cable ballooned from a 3911 characters
memo into a memo of 7885 characters - i.e. double its size.
Reason?
In the 2007 (and 2008 version) there suddenly appears:
-- An extensive section on the "One China" policy
-- A section stating that Taiwan is not a sovereign, independent
country
-- A section stating that the US does not support Taiwan's
membership in international organizations "that require
statehood."
The Members of Congress write: “However, when we compared the
2007/2008 version of the cable with the version of 2006 and
before that, we were disturbed by all the added political
language, detrimental to democratic Taiwan, which crept into
this memo.”
They continue: “We realize that for the past decade or so the
People's Republic of China has been pushing the United States
for a codification of these issues. It is unacceptable to
include such significant policy declarations - ones so
detrimental to a U.S. ally - in a technical memo. We
respectfully request a full explanation as to why the annual
memo was altered so significantly and what the implications are
for U.S. policy.”
FAPA President Bob Yang, Ph.D. says: “Clearly the State
Department has given in to Chinese requests to codify these
political provisions that are hurting Taiwan. They have been
pushing the United States for the past decades to incorporate
these policy statements wherever and whenever possible. And
finally, in 2007, they succeeded.”
Yang
continues: “Ultimately this whole memo with these nit-picking
guidelines in it should be abolished. The bottom line is – the
U.S. policy towards Taiwan should not be based on China’s
demands.”
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