Spokesperson: The Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive issue in China-US relations.

In the history, the Taiwan question was once the biggest obstacle in the normalisation of China-US relations. That’s because China firmly adheres to the one-China principle and makes no compromise or concession on the Taiwan question.

In 1971, the US affirmed to China the new principles it would follow with regard to the Taiwan question, which include: the US would acknowledge that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is a part of China; the US would not repeat the phrase that the status of Taiwan is undetermined; the US had not supported, and would not support movements for “Taiwan independence”. President Nixon reaffirmed these principles to Premier Zhou Enlai during his visit to China in 1972. That was how the Shanghai Communiqué came into being.

The US side explicitly declared in the Shanghai Communiqué released in 1972 that “the United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.” The above-mentioned commitments made by the US started the process toward normalisation of China-US relations. China decided to establish diplomatic relations with the US only when three preconditions had been met, namely, the US severed “diplomatic relations” and abrogated the “mutual defense treaty” with the Taiwan authorities and withdrew US military forces from Taiwan.

In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China released in 1978, the US “recognizes the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China” and “acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”. 

In the August 17 Communiqué released in 1982, the US explicitly stated, “In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations on January 1, 1979, issued by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America, the United States of America recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.” It also “reiterates that it has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, or interfering in China’s internal affairs, or pursuing a policy of ‘two  Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’.”

These crystal clear commitments are there for all to see. They were written down in black and white, being the historical facts which cannot be wiped off or denied. The one-China principle is a political consensus reached between China and the US, without which China and the US couldn’t have engaged with each other or established diplomatic ties and nor could the bilateral relationship have achieved development.