e China," and no "one China, one Taiwan." Both the United States and the People's Republic of China have agreed to be bound, for nearly thirty years, by the conditions put forward to the international community through the three previously cited official joint communiqus. Additionally, China, while not completely satisfied with all the arms sale provisions or the Taiwanese defense assertions of the Taiwan Relations Act, has recognized that this Act has the full force of domestic U.S. law and that it has become one of the guiding principles of United States foreign policy in East Asia since 1979.For its part, the United States has continued to assert to the international community its intent to maintain unofficial economic and cultural ties with Taiwan while affording de jure recognition of the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China. Following a rise in Chinese-Taiwanese tensions leading up to the 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections, Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in testimony for the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs confirmed that it was United States policy to insist that the People's Republic of China and Taiwan solve their differences peacefully, and that United States policy with regard to Taiwan was guided, ostensibly, by the Taiwan Relations Act. Mr. Lord restated that among the key elements of U.S. policy towards Taiwan was U.S. acknowledgement of the Chinese position that "there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China" and that the United States had no intention of pursuing a policy of "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan." Further, in a statement outlining U.S. policy toward Taiwan, Richard C. Bush, Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, (created by the Taiwan Relations Act) affirmed that while the Act provided for the legal basis of the unofficial relationship between Taiwan and the United States, the...
