Pentagon removes nuclear policy report that 'mistakenly' labelled Taiwan as part of China

A Pentagon report was temporarily removed and reposted on its website after it mistakenly labelled Taiwan as part of mainland China, a report said. 

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report was released on Friday by the US Department of Defense in which it cast China as "a major challenge" to US interests in Asia.

The report, however, labelled Taiwan as part of mainland China, an error Pentagon said was soon rectified. 

“There was an error printed in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review,” a Pentagon spokesperson told The Japan Times late Saturday when asked about the Taiwan labeling. 

The document, released Friday in Washington, was removed from the Defense Department website for several hours and was later reposted. 

The US established diplomatic relations with China in 1979, cutting formal ties with Taiwan as part of its “one-China” policy. Despite no formal ties with Taiwan, the US is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms.

China considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province and integral part of its territory, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

The Pentagon said the error would not affect the US stance on the issue.

“US policy toward Taiwan has remained consistent throughout seven presidential administrations, and is based on the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the three joint US-China communiques, and the Six Assurances,” the Pentagon spokesperson said.

Trump upset China last December by taking a telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, shortly after he won election, the first call between US and Taiwan leaders since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.

China suspects Tsai wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a red line for Beijing. Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan’s democracy and security.

China has pressured Taiwan since Tsai took office last year, suspending a regular dialogue mechanism and slowly peeling away its few remaining diplomatic allies.

China is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward Taiwan, and was upset when the United States recently allowed Tsai to transit through Hawaii and Guam on her way to and from diplomatic allies of Taiwan’s in the Pacific.

Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

China major challenge to US in Asia: NPR

The Pentagon said that the US wants to prevent China from mistakenly concluding that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable.

It is the Pentagon's first NPR since 2010.

The 74-page report cast China as "a major challenge to US interests in Asia".

The report said the US strategy for China is designed to "prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that it could secure an advantage through the limited use of its theatre nuclear capabilities or that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable".

China 'firmly opposes' NPR

China's Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said that the US document presumptuously speculated about the intentions behind China's development and played up the threat of China's nuclear strength.

"We hope the US side will discard its 'cold-war mentality', shoulder its own special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament, understand correctly China's strategic intentions and take a fair view on China's national defence and military development," he said.

China will resolutely stick to peaceful development and pursue a national defence policy that is defencive in nature, Ren said.

"China has adhered to the policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances," he said, adding that under no circumstances will China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.

The US, which possesses the world's largest nuclear weapons arsenal, should conform to the irreversible world trend of peace and development rather than run in the opposite direction, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Ren as saying.

(With agencies)