Experts view recent U.S. statements on Taiwan as "a fool's errand"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The recent U.S. statements about Taiwan will turn out to be "a fool's errand" from the perspective of U.S. strategic interests and international legal principles, U.S. experts have said.

"It bears remembering that the U.S. position on Taiwan and its one-China policy at a legal and tactical level is itself laced with self-serving duplicity," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies, told Xinhua.

"Washington won't go so far though as to champion Taipei's candidature in international bodies where statehood is a prerequisite because that would run up against its own legal position on the one-China (policy)," he added.

Gupta noted that the U.S. effort to expand the island's engagement with the UN system is "a fool's errand" because almost all the other 190 or so states accept that Taiwan is a part of China.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, noted that "Taiwan is, by far, the most sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations."

"Ratcheting up tensions is frightfully easy. Ratcheting down tensions is the artful challenge. What would be the most helpful is for both the U.S. and China to dial down the kinds of activities that inflame the other side in a quiet, non-obvious, parallel manner," Kuhn told Xinhua.

"China will not, China cannot, change its position on Taiwan," Kuhn said.

Sarwar Kashmeri, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Association, said he is concerned about the growing verbal bellicosity of both the United States and China on the Taiwan issue. Yet he stressed that he believes "both sides want to avoid a military clash."