US President George W. Bush has reaffirmed in Washington that his new administration will continue to adhere to the one-China policy, and set up "constructive and open" ties with China.

During a meeting with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday, Bush also said that the United States regards China as a "trading partner," and welcome it to join the World Trade Organization.

Bush told Mori that China is a great country and "we must establish constructive and open relations with it," according to a Japanese official who was on hand at the meeting.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on Monday also reiterated the new administration's commitment to the one- China policy. "We adhere to the one-China policy. It's a policy that we have told the Chinese government directly," Boucher said in a daily news briefing.

Boucher declined to comment on whether the Bush administration would backtrack from the "three nos" + no support to the independence of Taiwan, no support to "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan," no support to Taiwan's entry into any international organizations that are made up of sovereign states. The "three- nos" commitment was made by former US President Bill Clinton when he visited Shanghai in 1998.

"We don't get around to predicting what we intend or don't intend to say...But I think I've told you what our policy is, and that's what it remains," Boucher said.

(Xinhua 03/21/2001)