If you are puzzled by what is known as the "one-China" policy, please take a number — a very high number — and go stand in a long, long line. Put another way, if you were to put five people in a room and ask them to define the "one-China" policy, when they came out, you would get eight different answers. As the Congressional Research Service, which is respected for its nonpartisan, even-handed assessments, said in a recent report, the "oneChina" policy remains "somewhat ambiguous and subject to different interpretations."

At issue is China's claim that Taiwan should come under Chinese control, and Taiwan's increasingly strident insistence that it is a sovereign, independent nation. In the middle is the United States, which has vacillated since the Truman administration over the status of Taiwan and what the U.S. would do if other than a peaceful resolution loomed.

Although the debate over the "one-China" policy among Chinese, Taiwanese and various American factions sometimes takes on theological overtones worthy of Jesuit or Talmudic scholars, it is a serious issue in which one misstep could lead to war. China has repeatedly threatened to use force to capture Taiwan, while U.S. military officers say they have drawn up war plans to help defend Taiwan.

Adding to the confusion has been the U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity" declared since the Eisenhower administration. It was intended to keep the Chinese and Taiwanese guessing as to what the U.S. would do if China attacked Taiwan. Unhappily, strategic ambiguity has confused both of them, the American people and most everyone else concerned with the issue.

In sum, the "one-China policy" and "strategic ambiguity" have made an inherently unstable confrontation across the Taiwan Strait all the more susceptible to miscalculation, historically the greatest cause of war.

Perhaps it is time for the Bush administration to fashion a policy of a) strategic clarity, in which the U.S. would set out explicitly its objectives in the confrontation between China and Taiwan, and b) tactical ambiguity, in which the U.S. would declare that it would respond to threats to the peace in a political, economic and military manner of its own choosing and timing.

The United States would dump the "one-China policy" in favor of asserting that the ultimate resolution of the Taiwan question would be governed by self-determination. Whatever the new policy would be labeled, it would insist that the people of Taiwan be allowed to decide whether they want to be independent or join China.

They also would be entitled to determine when and under what circumstances they would decide.

Two studies of the "oneChina policy" have contributed thoughtful assessments to this debate. The Congressional Research Service publication, "China/Taiwan: Evolution of the One China Policy," was published in July. The other is an address at Harvard University last month by Alan Romberg, a former diplomat and China specialist at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

In its study, the research service says: "The 'one-China' policy has evolved to cover three issue areas: sovereignty, use of force and cross-strait dialogue" and then lays out the turns through which each has passed over the past half-century.

The research service also says: "Apart from questions about what the 'one-China' policy entails, issues have arisen about whether U.S. presidents have stated clear positions and have changed or should change policy affecting U.S. interests in stability and democracy."

In his address, Romberg asserts: "Fundamentally, the United States has taken the position that it does not have the right to determine this issue. At the end of the day, this is 'their' issue, not ours, and it should be decided by the people on both sides of the strait."

Romberg, however, contends: "There is no sound reason to alter or abandon our 'one-China' policy that, as difficult as it is to implement it well, there is no better alternative." He argues that the policy "has facilitated a broad and deep U.S. relationship with (China) based on respect for the rising power and influence of China at the same time it has protected the security and well-being of the people of Taiwan."

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