The Taiwan question is nothing else but a question of China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The upgrading of US-Taiwan military co-operation seriously threatens China's sovereignty.

According to Taiwan's Central News Agency, ROCSAT-2, the island's research satellite which can also be used for military purposes, was scheduled to be transported yesterday to the United States for launch. The French-made satellite will undergo a series of tests before it is launched in Vandenburg Air Force Base in California on January 17, 2004. The island's first fully-owned science satellite ROCSAT-1 went into orbit also from a US launch pad in January 1999.

Moreover, Taiwan's military reportedly plans to hold large-scale negotiations on military co-operation with the United States in Washington from December 5 to 20 to beef up its deterrent forces to safeguard its security in the face of "military crisis."

The latest uproar is one of a string of moves by the island to strengthen its military collaboration with the United States. The United States has broken its word to China by expanding military co-operation with Taiwan, which simply encourages the island's separatists. Despite its explicit commitment made in the three Sino-US communiques, over the past decades the United States has never severed its military connections with Taipei. It has gone even further now at a time when the island's separatist forces led by Chen Shui-bian have been seeking independence more boldly and overtly than ever before.

The Taiwan authorities' feverish fantasy of independence would not have run so rampant without US connivance.

Taiwan would not have become a question at all had the United States not intervened.

Neither its claims to adhere to the one-China policy nor its upgrading military co-operation with the island has gone beyond Washington's traditional strategic thinking regarding the Taiwan question.

Neither a united China nor a war across the Taiwan Straits fits in with the US perception of its own interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

The mainland has made it crystal clear it would not use force unless the island declares independence or foreign intervention takes place.

It is fully justifiable for a country to defend itself when its territorial integrity is threatened.

(China Daily HK Edition December 3, 2003)