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Vice President Zeng Qinghong Holds Talks with Visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney
2004-04-14 00:00

 

On April 13, 2004, Vice President Zeng Qinghong held talks with visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney in the Great Hall of the People.

Zeng Qinghong welcomed Cheney's visit to China. He said both China and the United States are two great countries. Despite the existing differences, the common interests between the two countries come in the first place. China and the United States share extensive common interests and cooperation basis both in maintaining peace and stability of Asia-Pacific and the world and promoting regional and global economic development and in coping with terrorism, proliferation of weapons, cross-border crime and diseases. China is delightful to see the progress made in bilateral relations in recent years and would like to work together with the US to push forward the development of the constructive relations of cooperation between the two countries.

When talking about economic and trade relations, Zeng Qinghong said the potentials for the development of bilateral trade remain huge despite the 50-fold increase over the past two and a half decades. It is normal that frictions will arise in the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and when dealing with such issues China adopts a rational attitude . China has increased imports from the US through sending procurement missions and other channels since the end of last year. China will comply with WTO rules and honor its related commitments.

Zeng stated the principled stance of the Chinese government on the Taiwan issue, stressing that an essential fact about the Taiwan issue is that there is but one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China. This is a fact that will not be changed by the result of the election in Taiwan. The Chinese government will continue to uphold the basic guideline of "one country, two systems" and is willing to make every effort to solve the issue peacefully. However, China will never tolerate "Taiwan independence". China hopes that the United States will honor its commitments, stop selling arms to Taiwan and refrain from sending any erroneous signal to forces seeking "Taiwan independence".

Stating the visit as an important one, Cheney said US-China relations have enjoyed sound development in general. Relations between the two countries have made further headway in recent years, with basis established for close cooperation in the fields of counter-terrorism and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The US government is satisfied with this development.

Cheney also said that the United States is aware of the importance of the Taiwan issue in US-China relations. There isn't any change in US' policies on this issue. Based on the three joint communiqués between the two countries and the one-China policy, the United States will not support "Taiwan independence" and opposes any unilateral action attempting to change the status quo of the Taiwan Straits.

The two sides agreed to continue to enhance the strategic dialogue among high-level officials and exchanges at other levels, expand exchanges and cooperation in counter-terrorism, economy, trade and law enforcement and boost exchanges between the military circles of the two countries. Both sides decided that counter-terrorism experts of the two countries would hold the fourth round of consultations in the coming June.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the reconstruction of Iraq and other issues of common interest.

 

 

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