Trump says China’s Xi has assured him that he won’t take action on Taiwan during Republican’s term
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump it says so Chinese President Xi Jinping He assured him that Beijing would take no steps toward its long-stated goal of unifying Taiwan with mainland China while the Republican leader was in office.
Trump said that the long-discussed Taiwan issue was not on the agenda Meeting with Xi in South Korea on Thursday largely focused on US-China trade tensions. However, the US leader expressed that he was confident that China would not take action on Taiwan while he was in office.
“He’s said it openly, and his people have said it openly in meetings, ‘We won’t do anything as long as President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said. quote from an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which airs Sunday.
U.S. officials have long been concerned about the possibility of China using military force against Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which governs U.S. relations with the island, does not require U.S. military intervention if China invades the island, but it does make it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent Beijing’s unilateral change of status.
When asked whether he would order US forces to defend Taiwan if China attacked, Trump demurred. The United States, and both Republican and Democratic administrations, have maintained a policy of “strategic uncertainty” regarding Taiwan, trying not to decide whether the United States would come to the island’s aid in such a scenario.
“You’ll find out if that’s going to happen, and he understands the answer to that,” Trump said of Xi.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, did not directly respond to a question about whether Trump had received any assurances from Xi or Chinese officials on Taiwan. He insisted in a statement that China “will never allow anyone or any power to separate Taiwan from China in any way.”
The statement said, “The Taiwan issue is China’s internal issue and is the basis of China’s core interests. How to resolve the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese people, and only the Chinese people can decide.”
The White House also did not provide further details about when Xi or Chinese officials communicated to Trump that military intervention in Taiwan was out of the question during the Republican presidency.
“60 Minutes” interview It was recorded Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. This marked Trump’s first appearance on the show since then. settled a case with CBS News in the newsmagazine this summer. report With Kamala Harris.
The rest of the interview is scheduled to air later Sunday.
