Staff writer, with Bloomberg and CNA
US President Donald Trump yesterday said he would speak to President William Lai (賴清德) as his administration considers whether to move ahead with a US$14 billion weapons sale to Taiwan — a potential arms deal that has drawn criticism from China.“Well, I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody,” Trump told reporters yesterday when asked if he had any plans to call his counterpart, although he did not offer a time frame for when such a conversation could take place.Trump previously said he would speak to the person “that’s running Taiwan,” without specifying who he meant.
US President Donald Trump talks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland yesterday.
“We have that situation very well in hand. We had a great meeting with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping (習近平)],” Trump added. “We’ll work on that Taiwan problem.”Trump’s comments follow a summit with Xi last week in Beijing in which the Chinese president delivered a blunt warning that relations between the world’s two largest economies could descend into conflict if they did not manage the issue of Taiwan properly.
Taiwan has long been a geopolitical flash point between Washington and Beijing. China has opposed the pending US arms package for Taiwan. However, scrapping the sale could draw bipartisan scrutiny in Washington.Trump last week said he did not make any commitment to Xi about the pending sale and that he would make a decision on the matter in a “fairly short period” of time.Meanwhile, Lai yesterday, on the second anniversary of his inauguration, told a news conference that if he could speak directly with Trump, he would convey that Taiwan is committed to maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and continuing to enhance its self-defense capabilities in response to growing military pressure from China.China is the main destabilizing force in the region, as Beijing continues to expand its military presence in the East and South China seas while carrying out exercises extending into the western Pacific, he said.In contrast, “Taiwan is a guardian of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Lai said, reiterating that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country whose democratic way of life should not be viewed as provocative.“No country has the right to annex Taiwan,” he said.Lai also said “we hope this military procurement can continue,” referring to the US$14 billion arms package.The US has a long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity over whether it would come to the aid of Taiwan if it is attacked by China, with Washington reserving the right to use force, but never explicitly saying whether it would actually intervene.However, negotiating any arms transfers with Xi risks flouting diplomatic policy.Taiwan-US relations have been dictated since 1982 by US President Ronald Reagan’s “six assurances,” which take a deliberately vague stance toward Taiwan’s sovereignty but explicitly state that the US would not consult with China on arms sales to Taipei and would not revise the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires Washington to provide the nation with defensive arms.
