TRUMP REAFFIRMS ‘ ONE CHINA’ POLICY
U. S. to maintain only unofficial ties with Chinese rival Taiwan
BEIJING — President Donald Trump has reaffirmed America’s longstanding “one China” policy in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, potentially alleviating concerns about a major shift in Washington’s relations with Beijing.
The White House and China’s state broadcaster CCTV said the two spoke at length by phone on Thursday evening.
The two leaders discussed numerous topics and Trump agreed “at the request of President Xi” to honor the “one China” policy that requires Washington to maintain only unofficial ties with China’s rival Taiwan, the White House said.
CCTV reported that Xi “praised” Trump’s affirmation and said China was willing to work with the U. S. to enhance ties and bring “more fruitful gains for the benefit of our two peoples and those in every country.”
The White House described the call as “extremely cordial” and said the two leaders had invited each other to visit their respective countries and looked forward to further discussions.
Some had questioned why Trump had taken so long to call Xi given that he’d already spoken with more than a dozen world leaders. Chinese observers had also noted that Trump had broken with his predecessors in not extending good wishes to the Chinese people on the occasion of last month’s Lunar New Year holiday, prior to the issuing of a belated greeting on Wednesday.
Trump has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices, criticized China’s military buildup in the South China Sea and said Beijing is doing too little to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory and complained after Trump upset decades of diplomatic precedent by talking by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing- wen shortly after winning November’s presidential election.
In December, Trump said in an interview that he didn’t feel “bound” by the decadesold one China policy unless the U. S. could gain concessions from China in trade and other areas. Washington has robust unofficial relations with the island and provides it with arms to guard against Beijing’s threat to use force to reunify with it.
Underscoring uncertainty in the relationship, the call between the leaders came as the U. S. Pacific Command reported a Chinese jet and a U. S. Navy patrol plane had an “unsafe” encounter over the South China Sea this week.
Pacific Command spokesman Robert Shuford said Friday that the “interaction” between a Chinese KJ- 200 early warning aircraft and a U. S. Navy P- 3C plane took place on Wednesday in international airspace. He did not say what was unsafe about the encounter.
Shuford says the U. S. plane was on a routine mission and operating according to international law.
The Chinese defense ministry has not responded to a faxed request for comment.
China routinely complains about U. S. military surveillance missions close to its southern island province of Hainan, which is home to numerous sensitive military installations.
A collision between a U. S. EP- 3 surveillance plane and a Chinese naval air force jet in April 2001 resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot and the 10- day detention of the U. S. air crew by China.
ington and Minnesota — showed that the ban may have violated the due- process rights of foreigners who had valid visas and green cards, as well as those in the country illegally.
They said “serious allegations” about religious discrimination against Muslims raised “significant constitutional questions” requiring a full airing in a trial court.
The order rejected a last- minute suggestion by the Justice Department to scale back the ban so it would apply only to visa holders who had never stepped foot in the USA. “It is not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the executive order,” they wrote.
The panel said the president should get “considerable deference” in the areas of immigration and national security, but “it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.”
Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell, who tried the states’ case during Tuesday’s oral arguments, said the court “seriously considered all the government’s arguments and rejected them.”
Trump’s ban, announced Jan. 27, temporarily barred citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days, and Syrian citizens indefinitely. It led to chaos at U. S. and international airports as tens of thousands of visa holders were blocked from entering the country or detained after arriving in the USA.
A barrage of protests and lawsuits followed, leading to federal court rulings against the order in New York, Virginia and elsewhere. One judge in Massachusetts ruled in Trump’s favor, but on Friday, District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the policy nationwide, citing “immediate and irreparable injury” to foreigners with valid visas and green cards.
The next day, the State Department said it would restore more than 60,000 canceled visas, and the Department of Homeland Security stopped enforcing the ban, reverting to standard inspections. Trump denounced the ruling of the “so- called judge” in starkly personal terms, and the Justice Department appealed to the 9th Circuit, the nation’s most liberal appeals court with jurisdiction over Western states.
That court required both sides to submit legal arguments by Monday and held an hour- long telephone hearing Tuesday that was live- streamed to listeners around the world. All three judges voiced skepticism about the need for the ban, but one said it did not appear to target Muslims in general.
The Trump administration contends that the president has authority under the Constitution to control immigration for national security purposes. It points to a 1952 law that allows a president to bar entry to immigrants if the president deems them to be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
Opponents of the travel ban, led by Washington state and Minnesota, say it discriminates against citizens of certain countries and the Muslim religion. They say the ban violates the clause of the Constitution that protects freedom of religion.
While the judges mulled and crafted their ruling, Trump renewed his verbal assault on the judiciary. He called the oral arguments at the 9th Circuit “disgraceful,” complained that courts “can be so political” and warned, “Right now, we are at risk because of what’s happened.”
His comments even drew a response from his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, who called such remarks “disheartening” and “demoralizing” in a private meeting with a Democratic senator. After Gorsuch’s reaction became public, Trump said it had been distorted.