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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》Pompeo urges US to recognize ROC
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo delivers a speech at the Grand Hyatt Taipei in Xinyi District on Friday.Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
‘UNMISTAKABLE’ REALITY: The US government should immediately ‘do the right and obvious thing’ by offering the ROC ‘diplomatic recognition as a free and sovereign country’
By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free and sovereign nation with a democratically elected government, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Friday in a speech in Taipei.
“Today I come here as a private citizen, but it is an imperative to change 50 years of ambiguity. It is about America’s diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China, while the US should continue to engage the People’s Republic of China as a sovereign government,” Pompeo said. “America’s diplomatic recognition of 23 million freedom-loving Taiwanese people, its legal, democratically elected government can no longer be ignored, avoided or treated as secondary.”
Pompeo, who arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday for a four-day visit, was speaking at an event organized by the government-affiliated Prospect Foundation think tank.
He urged the US to move away from its long-time policy of “strategic ambiguity.”
“It is my view that the US government should immediately take necessary and long-overdue steps to do the right and obvious thing, that is, to offer the Republic of China America’s diplomatic recognition as a free and sovereign country,” he said.
“This is not about Taiwan’s future independence. It is about a recognition of an unmistakable, already existent reality,” he said. “There is no need for Taiwan to declare independence because it is already an independent nation. Its name is the Republic of China. The people and government of the United States should simply accept this fundamentally decent, morally right thing. Taiwanese people deserve the world’s respect for continuing down this free, democratic and sovereign path.”
A supporter of Taiwan, the ex-US official last year posted online a photograph of himself eating dried pineapple from Taiwan, after Beijing prohibited imports of Taiwanese pineapples over alleged pest fears.
The principle of strategic ambiguity, which has governed US-China relations for 50 years, was first indicated in a joint communique between the countries on Feb. 28, 1972, in which the US acknowledged China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but did not agree to take any position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
