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Dianne Feinstein: U.S. Won't Defend Taiwan
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Saturday, April 22, 2006 1:00 p.m. EDT
Dianne Feinstein: U.S. Won't Defend Taiwan
In a sharp break with official U.S. policy towards the two Chinas, Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced on Thursday that America is under no obligation to defend Taiwan if the tiny island democracy is attacked by Communist China.
"It is important to point out a common misconception," Feinstein told a gathering of Chinese-American business leaders in San Francisco, in quotes picked up by the San Jose Mercury News.
"Nowhere does the [Taiwan Relations Act] explicitly require the U.S. to go to war with the mainland over Taiwan," she insisted.
Passed by Congress in 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act is considered to be the foundation of U.S.-Taiwan relations, with supporters arguing that it makes the United States legally bound to defend the island.
In 2001 President Bush pledged that the "U.S. will do whatever it takes to defend Taiwan."
Sen. Feinstein's comments left many in the Taiwanese-American community angry.
"I'm disappointed that a U.S. senator has misinterpreted the law," Kuor Hsin Chang, a spokesman for the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, told the Mercury News.
During her last reelection race in 2000, the San Francisco Democrat came under attack because of what critics said were her husband's extensive business interests in Communist China.
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Boren's Laws of the Bureaucracy: 1. When in doubt, mumble. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in charge, ponder.
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