President Chen Shui-bian said last Friday that Taiwan should “act now” in drawing up a new constitution because otherwise it “cannot be called a normal, complete and progressive new democracy.”

Negroponte, currently the top U.S. spy chief and set to become Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s deputy, was asked about Chen’s comment during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing.

When asked at the hearing about his opinion on President Chen’s push for a new constitution, Negroponte cited Washington’s adherence to a “one-China policy” and three U.S. China communiques issued after Nixon resumed contacts with China in 1972.

“We believe that it would be unwise to do anything that might be at cross purposes with those three,” said the 67-year-old veteran foreign service officer whose career began in Asia.

Pressed by Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, if the proposed new Taiwanese constitution would violate the communiques, he said, “I would want to study the implications but it certainly strikes me that that would be a distinct possibility”.

In the three communiques signed between 1972 and 1982, the United States recognized that Beijing considers there is only one China, including Taiwan, but did not explicitly adopt that view as its own.

Negroponte said that it would not be wise for Washington to review its policy on Taiwan. Washington should adopt an engagement policy at all levels with China, which is countering traditional U.S. influence in Asia, he said.

“I think we need to engage China on all levels and I think that ought to be our approach to that country, not one of confrontation but engagement,” he said.

Negroponte also said that he expected to resume a U.S.-China strategic dialogue launched by the previous deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, before his resignation in July last year.

Zoellick had challenged China to be “responsible stakeholder” in the global economy.

Indicating that he has a firm grasp of China’s history, Zoellick said he had gone to Beijing as early as 1972 with former top U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger shortly after then President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to that country.

“I was involved in the first outreach to China back in the early 1970s,” he said.

Negroponte also said that he expected to spend much time trying to secure peace in Northeast Asia, which has been threatened by North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship.

On ties with Japan, the top Asian ally of the United States, he said he expected to devote “an important amount of time” to nurture that relationship.

He said, “Our relationship with Japan has always been a corner stone of our policy towards East Asia.

“I don’t think we should take the relationship for granted, I think it needs to be nurtured and Japan remains one of our most important allies in the world.”

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