HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) \u2014 A bipartisan group of senators asked the Trump administration on Tuesday to reaffirm support for Taiwan, whose autonomy has been a point of tension between the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers, which include Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis and John Curtis, along with nine of their Democratic colleagues, wrote in a letter <\/a>to State Secretary Marco Rubio that Washington should maintain its stance on the self-governing island.<\/p>\n Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned <\/a>his American counterpart against mishandling their talks on Taiwan at a summit in Beijing on Thursday. China has asserted for decades that it is entitled to the island, a position acknowledged but opposed by the U.S. Washington enacted a law in 1979 requiring it to arm Taipei and maintain forces nearby.<\/p>\n \u201cOur commitment to this legislation has long helped ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait \u2013 which is essential to U.S. interests there and across the Indo-Pacific,\u201d the senators told Rubio. \u201cMaintaining this commitment is necessary to ensure the credibility of U.S. security commitments to allies and partners in the region and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n President Donald Trump didn\u2019t say whether he talked with Xi about Taiwan when asked by a reporter after the summit<\/a>. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told The National News Desk that the administration is committed to the status quo.<\/p>\n Rubio told NBC News later Thursday that Xi brought up Taiwan with Trump, who didn\u2019t stray from Washington\u2019s longstanding stance.<\/p>\n \u201cU.S. policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today and as of the meeting that we had here today,\u201d the secretary said. \u201cIt was raised. They always raise it on their side. We always make clear our position, and we move on to the other topics. We know where they stand, and I think they know where we stand.\u201d<\/p>\n The Taiwan Relations Act, enacted during the Carter administration, set a policy of supporting Taipei\u2019s autonomy without explicit commitments to defend it. David Sacks, an Asian studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has cautioned Trump from drifting from the spirit of the law.<\/p>\n The president, who has recently softened his tone toward China, must reaffirm the U.S.\u2019s position on Taiwan to prevent Xi from making progress on reunification, Sacks wrote in a Sunday article<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cChina\u2019s aim is to sow Taiwanese distrust in the United States as a means of undermining the island\u2019s efforts to invest in defense and create the perception among the Taiwanese people that their only option is to unify with China,\u201d Sacks said. \u201cAdjusting the U.S. approach to Taiwan because of Chinese pressure would thus bring Xi closer to his ultimate goal of absorbing Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n