Why Taiwan became the defining issue in the Trump-Xi talks
BEIJING — US President Donald Trump maintained an uneasy silence on Taiwan after his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, even though he announced in December that the US would sell a record $11 billion worth of arms to the island against Beijing’s wishes.
Trump had said that arms sales to Taiwan would be on the agenda of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which ended on Friday.
But after the two leaders’ first meeting on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News that “did not stand out first in today’s debate.”
First reading by the White House Didn’t mention Taiwan It is home to a maker of some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, although Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he expects Trump to say more about Taiwan in the coming days.
The silence continued – more than 24 hours after China issued its official statement with Xi’s stern warning that mismanagement of Taiwan would put US-China relations in “grave danger”.
“That’s a pretty direct and strong comment from President Xi,” former deputy U.S. trade representative Wendy Cutler said Friday on CNBC’s “China Connection.” he said.
“That’s how I interpret it, he really attributes economic stability to developments regarding Taiwan,” he said.
Beijing’s reading of the closing Trump-Xi meeting on Friday morning emphasized the benefits of cooperation and Didn’t mention Taiwan.
‘Calm down’
Trump said China and Taiwan “both need to calm the situation.”
In an interview with Fox News In his news release Friday afternoon, Trump insisted that long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan had not changed after two days of talks with Xi.
Trump said Taiwanese people should feel “neutral” about his visit.
But he also expressed opposition to the possibility of the United States coming to Taiwan’s defense if Taiwan were attacked, framing Taipei’s decision to pursue independence from China as the deciding factor.
“I will say this: I don’t want someone to be independent and, you know, we have to travel 9,500 miles for a war,” Trump said. “I’m not looking for that. I want them to cool down, I want China to cool down.”
He added that he had not yet approved another potential arms sale to Taiwan: “I may, I may not.”
“We don’t want someone to say, ‘Let’s be independent because the United States supports us,'” Trump said.
“It would be very smart if Taiwan cooled it down a little bit. It would be very smart if China cooled it down a little bit. They both need to cool it down,” he said.
Earlier, Trump said he refused to answer Xi directly when asked whether the United States would defend Taiwan against Chinese attack.
Trump also said Taiwan was not part of the discussion when he met with Xi in South Korea last fall.
Trump’s decision not to respond is in line with the long-standing US “One China” policy, which leaves unclear the status of the island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.
The “strategic uncertainty” approach leaves open the question of whether Washington would come to Taipei’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack.
A statue of a soldier with a gun pointed at Lieyu Island in Kinmen, Taiwan, across the Taiwan Strait to Xiamen on the Chinese mainland.
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As for arms sales, Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 It adds that the United States will “provide Taiwan with such defense materiel and defense services as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain adequate self-defense capabilities.”
Maintaining the status quo
Meanwhile, Taiwan said Trump and Rubio’s comments signaled that US policy towards the island has not changed.
“It is a clear fact that [Taiwanese] Taiwan presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said on Saturday that President Lai Ching-te has consistently advocated continuing to contribute to regional peace and stability and remaining committed to maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
“China’s increasing military threat is the only destabilizing factor in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Taiwan Strait,” Kuo said. he added.
“If you look at the output of all the Trump-Xi meetings before this [week]”Just in the last few events since April of last year, you’re seeing a much smaller portion of the reading in the U.S. focused on Taiwan,” Rush Doshi, director of the China strategy initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, said on CNBC on Friday.Squawk Box Asia.”
“There’s actually no sign of any significant change [the U.S.] Doshi stated that Taiwan policy has not changed since the summit, at least not yet.
Taiwan is a democratically self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. US has recognized Beijing since 1979 Taipei is not and accepts China’s position that there is one China and Taiwan is part of China. The United States has an unofficial relationship with the island.
– CNBC’s Eunice Yoon, Dan Mangan, Kevin Breuninger and Azhar Sukri contributed to this story.
