WASHINGTON: Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said Thursday he would be “happy” to talk to US leader Donald Trump — a conversation that would break more than four decades of diplomatic protocol and risk angering China.
Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he would speak to Lai, as the White House weighs arms sales to the democratic island.
It was the second time since a summit in Beijing last week that Trump has said he would call the Taiwanese leader.
Such communication would be the first time since Washington switched diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 that serving presidents of Taiwan and the United States would speak to each other.
Lai said Taiwan was “committed to maintaining the stable status quo in the Taiwan Strait” and that “China is the disruptor of peace and stability,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
