Chinese Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong on Wednesday urged the United States to honor its commitment to the one-China policy and stop selling weapons to Taiwan.

"The question of Taiwan has always been a very sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations. The normalization of China-U.S. relations is based on the U.S. commitment to the one-China policy. And I think the U.S. has made a very serious commitment to China as far as the question of Taiwan is concerned," said Ambassador Zhou, responding to a question after delivering a speech on Sino-U.S. trade relations at the Center for National Policy in downtown Washington D.C.

This has been laid out in the three joint communiques between China and the United States, namely, the Shanghai communique, the Aug. 17 communique, and the communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations, the ambassador said, noting that "the principle of one China has been the solid basis of all these joint communiques."

Zhou said the recently proposed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan is a gross violation of the solemn commitments made by the U.S. side to China because in the Aug. 17 joint communique, the U.S. side is committed to reducing its arms sales to Taiwan in both qualitative and quantitative terms, leading to a final resolution.

"Obviously, that is not happening," the Chinese ambassador said. "We hope the U.S. side will honor its commitment and abide by the one-China policy by not just words but action."

The proposed sales of weapons to Taiwan has already had an negative impact on the Sino-U.S. relations, he said. "We hope the U.S. side will correct that and stop selling weapons to Taiwan," Zhou said.

In spite of China's strong objection, the U.S. government on Friday notified the U.S. Congress about its plan to sell arms worth about 6.5 billion U.S. dollars to Taiwan, including Patriot III anti-missile system, E-2T airborne early warning aircraft upgrade system, Apache helicopters, Javelin missiles, Harpoon submarine-launched missiles, and some airplane accessory parts.

Speaking in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the U.S. act "has seriously blocked bilateral exchanges and contacts in various fields, including high-level visits between the two armed forces."

"The U.S. side should take full responsibilities for the current situation of damaged military-to-military ties," Qin said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2008)