Two public events, one in Taiwan and the other in China, have brought some much-needed clarity to the often murky and sometimes tense confrontation across the Taiwan Strait.

In Taipei, the leading candidate for election to the presidency in March, Ma Ying-jeou, laid out explicitly what his policy toward China would be if he were elected. In accord with a Chinese fondness for numbering things, Ma called his potential policy "The Three No's."

He said he would pursue a policy of "no negotiations for unification (with China) during my presidential term; no pursuit of de-jure independence; and no use of force by either side of the Taiwan Strait." He contended, based on many polls, that a majority of Taiwanese prefer the status quo to either unification or independence.

In Beijing, the visiting commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific and Asia, Adm. Timothy Keating, was explicit in asserting the right of American warships to sail through the Taiwan Strait. Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, considers the strait an internal waterway under Chinese jurisdiction.

"We don't need China's permission to go through the Taiwan Strait," Keating said in response to a Chinese reporter at a meeting with Chinese, American and other foreign correspondents. "It's international water. We will exercise our free right of passage whenever and wherever we choose as we have done repeatedly in the past and we'll do in the future."

In declaring his "Three No's" policy, Ma addressed a conference in Taipei after his Nationalist Party, perhaps better known by its Chinese name, Kuomintang, or KMT, had scored a sweeping victory in legislative elections last weekend. The KMT won 81 seats in the 113-seat legislature to 27 for the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP. Five other seats went to minor parties.

The KMT collected 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent for the DPP, making Ma the overwhelming favorite to win in March and replace President Chen Sui-bian of the DPP in May. Ma and other KMT leaders cautioned, however, that there are no guarantees. In democracies, voters have a way of going to the ballot box and voting as they please, confounding the political pundits.

In asserting that his government would not negotiate with Beijing over unification, Ma served a notice that may unsettle Hu Jintao and other Communist leaders who have made clear they preferred Ma and the KMT to President Chen. The KMT has strong historical ties with the mainland while Chen has been pushing Taiwanese independence ever since he became president in 2000.

Moreover, Ma has taken pains in recent years to assure the electorate that he shares their identity even though he was born in Hong Kong of parents who came from the mainland and brought him to Taiwan as an infant. In an interview two years ago, he said flatly: "I am Taiwanese."

Further, he reminded Chinese leaders that they had used force, firing missiles toward Taiwan, in trying to influence an election in 1996. That, Ma said, "served only to alienate Taiwan people's hearts and minds against the mainland and alarm the international community over its rash behavior."

In Beijing, Keating was making his second visit to China as part of a continuing U.S. effort to preclude Chinese leaders from miscalculating American military capabilities and intentions. Equally important, Keating and a senior Pentagon official, James Shinn, sought to discern Chinese intentions behind a steady expansion of their armed forces.

The Chinese mostly reiterated known positions, saying that Taiwan was a most sensitive issue, that the U.S. should stop selling arms to Taiwan, and that China posed no threat to America. Keating responded by repeating the "one-China policy" of the U.S., by renewing proposals for military exchanges, and by asserting that the U.S. seeks to avoid confrontations.

But when the Chinese reporter asked what was behind the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk's recent transit of the Taiwan Strait after being denied a port call in Hong Kong, Keating broke out of diplo-speak to lay out the long-standing U.S. position that those are international waters. Even so, U.S. warships have recently bypassed the strait to avoid provoking the Chinese.

In this case, the admiral said, the carrier's captain "was given permission to transit the Taiwan Strait." A minute later, Keating softened that, saying "we don't want to be confrontational about this." If the Chinese wanted to know why American ships were there, he said, "We're going to tell them the truth."

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday's Focus section.