President Trump has described a potential multibillion-dollar weapons sale to Taiwan as a \u201cnegotiating chip\u201d with China, raising new doubts about the pace and scale of American military support for the island democracy.<\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s government has been waiting for months for Mr. Trump to sign off on a $14 billion package of missiles, anti-drone equipment and air-defense systems intended to fortify the island against Beijing\u2019s military threats.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump himself had pressured Taiwan to spend more on its own defense. Now he is using the very arms his administration had pushed the island to buy as leverage with China, the United States\u2019 main adversary.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One after leaving China on Friday that he had discussed the weapons package with China\u2019s president, Xi Jinping, during their summit this past week in Beijing. He was asked in an interview with Fox News<\/a> whether he would approve the Taiwan deal.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,\u201d he said in the interview, which was recorded in Beijing but aired after he left. \u201cIt depends.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n He did not go into details about what he wanted in return, but Mr. Trump has pushed China to make major purchases of American airplanes, ethanol, soybeans, beef and sorghum.<\/p>\n His comments appear to undermine the assurances to Taiwan from some in his own administration that U.S. support for the island is steadfast and nonnegotiable. Before the summit, a bipartisan group of senators had urged against<\/a> letting support for Taiwan become a bargaining chip with China.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks increasingly likely that Trump will indefinitely withhold the $14 billion arms package to Taiwan, in the hopes that Beijing will give him what he wants on the economic front,\u201d said Amanda Hsiao<\/a>, a China director at Eurasia Group, a consulting firm.<\/p>\n Raising the Pressure on China<\/p>\n By saying his approval of the arms deal \u201cdepends on China,\u201d Mr. Trump seemed to be suggesting that the ball now lay in its court. There was no immediate comment from Beijing on Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n On the first day of their talks in Beijing, Mr. Xi told Mr. Trump<\/a> that the \u201cTaiwan issue is the most critical issue in China-U.S. relations.\u201d If the matter was mishandled, Mr. Xi warned, that could put \u201cthe entire U.S.-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump also seemed keen to show that he listened intently to Mr. Xi\u2019s views, saying in the interview that after a long talk with the Chinese leader, \u201cI think I know more about Taiwan right now than I know about almost any country.\u201d<\/p>\n But he also later raised the possibility that he might call Taiwan\u2019s president, a step sure to enrage Beijing.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to speak to the person that right now is \u2014 you know who he is \u2014 that\u2019s running Taiwan,\u201d he said, in a possible reference to the island\u2019s president, Lai Ching-te.<\/p>\n Should Mr. Trump do so, he would be the first sitting American president known to have spoken to a Taiwanese leader since at least 1979, when the United States severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as part of its recognition of the People\u2019s Republic of China. China objects vehemently to any contact between senior U.S. and Taiwanese officials.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s gambit could backfire, either by angering Beijing if he approves the arms sales, or by possibly prompting American lawmakers to step up pressure on him to increase support for Taiwan.<\/p>\n If Mr. Xi wants to punish the Trump administration over Taiwan, analysts have said, China could hold back on orders of farm goods, or ramp up restrictions on exports of rare earths that are essential to many technology components. But Mr. Xi also agreed to make a state visit<\/a> to the United States this year, and could use the prospect of more talks \u2014 and more deals \u2014 to influence Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n A Blow to the Taiwan President\u2019s Agenda<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s comments are likely to be seen as a setback for Mr. Lai of Taiwan, who had pushed strenuously for more military spending and purchases of American weapons.<\/p>\n When Taiwanese lawmakers finally voted for $25 billion in special funding<\/a> to pay for the two weapons packages from the United States, lawmakers from Mr. Lai\u2019s own party abstained from the vote because it left out spending for domestically made drones and other weapons.<\/p>\n Taiwan\u2019s government tried to quickly smooth over any tensions, saying that they have been assured multiple times by American officials that U.S. policy remains unchanged.<\/p>\n \u201cOur country is grateful for President Trump\u2019s continued support for security in the Taiwan Strait since his first term,\u201d Mr. Lai\u2019s office said in a statement about Mr. Trump\u2019s latest remarks. Countries near China \u201cwere cooperating with the United States to actively strengthen their defenses; Taiwan cannot and will not be an exception.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks would also \u201cprovide cheap ammunition\u201d for Mr. Lai\u2019s detractors in Taiwan, who say he is too beholden to Washington, said William Yang<\/a>, a senior analyst in Taiwan for the International Crisis Group, which monitors and tries to help resolve conflicts.<\/p>\n Some politicians from Taiwan\u2019s main opposition party, the Nationalist Party, which favors stronger ties with China, quickly came out to say that Mr. Trump\u2019s comments showed Mr. Lai had been gullible<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under Mr. Lai, Taiwan has sought to build a more nimble, mobile military with missiles and air-defense technology that can counter China\u2019s expanding military, in large part by buying U.S. weapons. Mr. Trump already approved one $11 billion package last year, a move that Beijing responded to with military exercises near the island.<\/p>\n As for the $14 billion package, Mr. Trump would only say that he would \u201cmake a determination over the next fairly short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n In his interview with Fox, Mr. Trump also revived his longstanding accusation that Taiwan had gained its world-leading know-how in semiconductor production in underhanded ways, and therefore owes the United States. He also emphasized its vulnerability to attack from China, with the United States many thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n \u201cThey stole our chip industry,\u201d Mr. Trump said of Taiwan. \u201cTaiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Does Trump Believe Beijing?<\/p>\n Perhaps more worrisome for Taiwan\u2019s government is that Mr. Trump\u2019s account of his conversations with Mr. Xi suggested that he took onboard China\u2019s argument that Taiwan bore a big part of the blame for the tensions. China has cast Mr. Lai and his officials as dangerous separatists who are trying to drag the United States into a bruising war.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s a risky thing when you go independent, you know,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re going independent because they want to get into a war, and they want to, they figure they have the United States behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to see it stay the way it is,\u201d he said, apparently referring to Taiwan\u2019s so-called status quo, in which the island is functionally separate but not pursuing formal independence.<\/p>\n Taiwan, which has asserted that China is the aggressor, has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Most Taiwanese see themselves and their island democracy as distinct from China, and they have no desire to be brought under Beijing. Mr. Lai and his party reject Beijing\u2019s claims over Taiwan and say the island is already in effect independent.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s comments \u201csuggest that Xi\u2019s presentation on Taiwan, which all but certainly framed Taiwan as the source of cross-strait tensions and a nonexistent Taiwanese push for independence as the key risk that needs to be managed, had an effect on Trump,\u201d said David Sacks<\/a>, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump has described a potential multibillion-dollar weapons sale to Taiwan as a \u201cnegotiating chip\u201d with China, raising…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":800997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[128418,74,315651,5959,10273,326299,318385,50,203057,42478,90526,30723,202583,277,67,16852,132,68,11762],"class_list":{"0":"post-800996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-arms-trade","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-communist-party-of-china","12":"tag-donald-j","13":"tag-international-relations","14":"tag-lai-ching-te","15":"tag-marco","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-rubio","18":"tag-state-department","19":"tag-taipei-taiwan","20":"tag-taiwan","21":"tag-taiwan-strait","22":"tag-trump","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116585351460391655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}