The Three Communiqués and One-China Framing
Parse the textual architecture of U.S.-PRC normalization — the Shanghai, Normalization, and August 17 Communiqués — and decode Beijing's One-China lexicon.
The Three Documents and What Each Settled
The "Three Joint Communiqués" (中美三个联合公报) are the textual spine of the U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship and the principal artifact MFA spokespersons invoke when condemning U.S. conduct on Taiwan. They are not treaties under U.S. domestic law — none was submitted to the Senate under Article II — but Beijing treats them as binding political commitments of co-equal status with treaties. Reading PRC statements requires knowing precisely what each text says and, equally, what it does not say.
The Shanghai Communiqué (28 February 1972), issued at the close of Nixon's visit, contains the foundational formula. The U.S. side "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 does not challenge that position." The verb is acknowledges, not recognizes or accepts — a distinction Henry Kissinger and the drafting team chose deliberately. The Chinese-language text uses 认识到 (rènshi dào), which Beijing routinely renders in English propaganda as "recognizes," eliding the gap.
The Normalization Communiqué (1 January 1979, signed 15 December 1978) established diplomatic relations, transferred recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic, and announced U.S. termination of the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty with Taipei (effective 1 January 1980 under its one-year notice clause). The United States "recognizes the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China" and "acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China." Recognition attaches to the government, acknowledgment to the position on Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act (Public Law 96-8, 10 April 1979) was Congress's domestic-law response, mandating arms sales "of a defensive character" and treating any non-peaceful determination of Taiwan's future as "of grave concern."
The August 17 Communiqué (17 August 1982) addresses arms sales. The U.S. "does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan," intends that sales "will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level" of recent years, and intends "gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading over a period of time to a final resolution." Reagan simultaneously transmitted the Six Assurances (14 July 1982) to Taipei — no end date on arms sales, no prior consultation with Beijing, no mediation, no revision of the TRA, no altered position on sovereignty, no pressure to negotiate — and a secret memorandum to the National Security Council linking U.S. arms-sale reductions to PRC commitment to peaceful resolution. Declassified in 2019 by AIT, this memorandum is now public U.S. doctrine: reductions are conditional.
The Asymmetry Beijing Exploits
MFA briefings collapse three distinct U.S. textual positions into one phrase: "the one-China principle" (一个中国原则). The United States has never subscribed to the principle. Washington maintains a policy — singular, lower-case — composed of the three communiqués, the TRA, and the Six Assurances, with the Six Assurances added to the public formulation by Secretary Pompeo (31 August 2020) and reaffirmed by the Biden administration. Beijing's principle asserts as fact that Taiwan is part of the PRC; U.S. policy acknowledges a Chinese position without endorsing it and leaves Taiwan's status undetermined. When Wang Wenbin or Mao Ning says the U.S. has "violated its solemn commitments in the three communiqués," the analyst must check the actual treaty text against the alleged violation.