When President Jimmy Carter in 1979 broke off relations with the ROC in order to establish relations with the PRC, Congress responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act that maintained relations, but stopped short of full recognition of the ROC. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan also saw that the Six Assurances were adopted, the fifth being that the United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Still, United States policy has remained ambiguous. In the House International Relations Committee on April 21, 2004, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, James A. Kelly, was asked by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) whether the United States government's commitment to Taiwan's democracy conflicted with the so-called One-China Policy. He admitted the difficulty of defining the U.S.'s position: "I didn’t really define it, and I’m not sure I very easily could define it." He added, "I can tell you what it is not. It is not the One-China principle that Beijing suggests."