President Donald Trump said that China and Taiwan “ought to both cool it” after his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Trump, in an interview with Fox News that aired Friday afternoon, insisted that long-standing U.S. policy on Taiwan remains unchanged after his two days of meetings with Xi.
The people of Taiwan should feel “neutral” about his visit, Trump said.
But he also appeared to express some opposition to the prospect of the U.S. leaping to Taiwan’s defense if it is attacked, while framing Taipei’s decision to pursue independence from China as the deciding factor.
“I will say this: I’m not looking to have somebody go independent, and you know, we’re supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight 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 has yet to approve a potential large sale of weapons to Taiwan: “I may do it, I may not do it.”
“We’re not looking to have somebody say ‘Let’s go independent because the United States is backing us,'” Trump said.
“Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit. They ought to both cool it,” he said.
Earlier, Trump said he refused to directly answer Xi when asked if the U.S. would defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.
“That question was asked to me today,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as they flew back to the United States from a two-day summit in Beijing.
“That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said I don’t talk about that,” Trump said.
Trump’s decision not to answer is in line with the U.S.’ long-standing “One China” policy, which leaves the status of Taiwan, an island that Beijing claims as its own, undefined.
The approach of “strategic ambiguity” leaves open whether Washington would come to Taipei’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack.
But since the U.S. began its war against Iran in late February, analysts have raised concerns that China is in a stronger position to attack Taiwan because of the movement of U.S. Navy carriers from the Indo-Pacific region to the Middle East and the depletion of American munitions as a result of their use against Iran.
“The Iran war has once again highlighted deficiencies in the U.S. defense industrial base. If the United States does not move quickly this time, it may have to learn this lesson — the hard way — against China in the Indo-Pacific,” Seth G. Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, wrote in an analysis published earlier this week.
Trump’s comments on Friday came in response to a reporter who had asked if the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
“I don’t want to say that,” Trump replied.
“There’s only one person that knows that. You know who it is? Me. I’m the only person,” he said, before noting that Xi had asked the same question of him earlier.
At the same time, he gave a vague response when asked about a pending arms sales package earmarked for Taiwan.
“We discussed the whole thing with the arms sales in great detail actually, and I’ll be making a decision,” he said. “But, you know, I think the last thing we need right now is a war that’s 9,500 miles away.”
Chinese state media, which has been glowing about Trump’s praise for the Chinese leader, has made no mention of Trump and his administration’s conversations about Taiwan, which analysts say likely means the Chinese side did not like what was said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News in an interview that the issue was raised, but that “U.S. policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today.”
The issue of Taiwan took center stage on the first day of the two-day summit after Xi delivered a surprisingly stern message on Taiwan despite positive preliminaries about building stable ties and avoiding conflict.
When the summit began, Xi pointedly warned Trump that the U.S. and China “will have clashes and even conflicts” if the long-standing issue of Taiwan’s independence is mishandled.
Xi told his American counterpart it could put “the entire relationship” between their two nations “in great jeopardy” if that issue is not “properly” handled, the Chinese state news outlet Xinhua reported on Thursday.
Xi told Trump that “the Taiwan question” is “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” Xinhua reported.
In the run-up to the summit, there was an expectation that Beijing would press Trump to change the U.S.’ official policy on Taiwan’s status from “does not support” independence to “opposes” independence.
The tweaked words would be more of a statement of the status of Taiwan, moving it more in line with Beijing’s view and sending a message about U.S. security commitments in the region.
Taiwan expert Bonnie Glaser, who this month co-authored an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, titled “Why China Waits: Beijing Is Playing a Long Game on Taiwan,” told CNBC that there are strong reasons for Xi to hold off on an attack against Taiwan.
“The question is what would be the likely costs to China, even if they might be able to succeed in a military takeover,” said Glaser, who is managing director of the Indo-Pacific program with the German Marshall Fund.
“The costs would be prohibitive. There is no certainty of success. And the costs of failure are very high — including threatening the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] legitimacy,” Glaser said. “The massive purges in the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] suggests that Xi is not prepared to use force in the near future.”
“The PLA’s readiness has likely been significantly affected by the purges,” she said.
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