Apparently, Obama did not stress the 1979 act that promises U.S. help in Taiwan's self-defense against attack from the mainland as the most important of the four documents always cited as collectively forming the foundation of U.S. China policy. All of his five predecessors — Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — have never failed to mention that Congress-initiated act signed after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

But that does not mean Uncle Sam has given up Taiwan. For one thing, the one-China principle is part of all four documents, including the Shanghai communique of 1972, Carter's December 1978 normalization agreement with Beijing, the aforementioned 1979 act and the August 17, 1982 communique limiting U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

The Shanghai communique, signed while President Chiang Kai-shek was alive and Taipei enjoyed diplomatic relations with Washington, “acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.”

“The United States Government,” the communique states, “does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.”

Carter's normalization agreement reiterates the Shanghai communique, while President Reagan stated the 1982 communique was predicated on the assumption that the People's Republic agreed to a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue. Moreover, in 1992, Taipei and Beijing reached a tacit agreement under which both acknowledges there is but one China, whose connotation can be individually and orally expressed. This principle of one China with different interpretations is commonly known as the 1992 Consensus. President Obama may have meant the 1992 Consensus when he repeated the one-China principle in Beijing.

The omission of mention was strategic. Obama wanted to make his host feel more comfortable. China and the United States are locked in an uneasy economic co-dependence. The world's largest economy and China, which is expected to replace Japan as the second largest, have become inextricably intertwined, while Uncle Sam has his hands full trying to extricate himself from Iraq and Afghanistan. China is America's top creditor. Beijing can try to wreck the American economy by dumping U.S. Treasury securities and move to influence U.S. policy on Taiwan.

To walk out on Taiwan, on the other hand, is detrimental to U.S. national interests that dictate no Chinese dominance in Asia. There's little doubt that Washington is attaching less importance to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose informal summit in Singapore both Obama and Hu attended, and on the sideline of which they met with Lien Chan as representative of President Ma Ying-jeou.

Obama welcomes China as an emerging strong and prosperous power that should play an increasingly important role in world affairs. He may continue to heap praise on a peacefully rising China to put a formal end to Washington's containment of China policy, but Washington simply has to support India as a counterweight to China and member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that are jittery over a possible Chinese hegemony. Taiwan has to be supported, too, lest China extend its sphere of influence over the Pacific. Uncle Sam won't stop his sales of defensive arms to Taiwan, which are mandated in the 1979 act Obama omitted mentioning in Beijing.

One thing must be very clear. No matter what has happened over the past three decades, East Asia has remained an inescapable part of the American present — and of the American future. A retreat from the tremendous involvement on the Asian mainland occasioned by Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in the Chinese Civil War and the war in Vietnam is inevitable. A retreat to indifference toward Asia is impossible.

The rise of China as a military power and the decline of Japan as a counterforce, accompanied by the erosion of European power, have made Asian countries, including Taiwan, just as important as they were still Japanese and European colonies. The fall of the Soviet Union has not removed all the U.S. worries about Asia. The People's Republic is rising, though it has yet to pose a real threat to the Pax Americana like the Soviet Union before its disintegration.

American policy toward China is framed against the larger setting of international politics. Washington takes into consideration the need to coexist with the People's Republic as well as the new need of smaller countries in the region to cope with the Chinese power.

Actually, it is to the advantage — not the disadvantage of other nations — when China continues to become more prosperous. A more prosperous country won't seek hegemony, because it can keep peace within its own borders and will refrain from the use of force to ensure its continued prosperity. Smaller nations must be made strong enough not to invite aggression from without.

The United States hopes for the peaceful progress of China, and will help make Asian countries feel comfortable coexisting in peace with their giant neighbor.