Fifty years ago, the leadership of the United States and China issued the Shanghai Communique which was the bedrock for the normalization of relations between the two countries. The key provision of the Communique was that the US recognized that the Island of Taiwan was part of China. That there is only one China, and it is represented by the People's Republic of China.

On February 27, activists in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. honored the 50th-anniversary of a path-breaking agreement between Washington and Beijing.

Taiwan was seized from China in 1895 by the Japanese Empire. Taiwan was returned to China at the time of the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. Today, however, as the US has shifted its political and military orientation toward China and is preparing for major power conflict rather than peace, the US is sending more advanced weapons to Taiwan and has secretly sent US troops to Taiwan to train its military for a future war with China. This violates the spirit and letter of the Shanghai Communique and constitutes an illegal violation of China's sovereignty.

The US government is going in the wrong direction. The government and mass media are engaged in a full-scale campaign of demonization of China so that the US public will both hate and fear China. This is designed to provide public support for the idea that conflict with China is now inevitable. This has led directly to a dramatic increase of anti-Asian hate crimes in the US. Any war between the U.S. and China would be catastrophic for the whole world.

On the anniversary of the signing of the Shanghai Communique, a number of peace organizations including Pivot to Peace, the ANSWER Coalition, Codepink, and Popular Resistance rallied in front of the White House and insisted that the US policy return to the spirit and letter of the Shanghai Communique. These organizations and others from the public stood together to oppose war and demand peace with China!

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