Beijing says it has not renounced use of force against Taiwan
Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi warned of a “severe situation” in the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, hours before US Ambassador to China David Perdue disclosed in a Fox News interview that President Donald Trump asked President Xi Jinping during last week’s White House meeting whether China would like to buy American weapons.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei before Perdue’s interview aired, Chen said: “Taiwan faces a severe situation in the Taiwan strait. Even though China’s economy is declining, it continues investing more resources into building military capacity. Under this context, the US very much understands our defence needs.”
In the Fox News interview, Perdue said: “President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point.” Perdue did not specify when during last week’s meeting the question was raised or what categories of weapons were at issue.
The disclosure came two days after Perdue told CNBC on Friday that there had been no change in Trump’s Taiwan policy, including on arms sales. Trump has not mentioned the pending Taiwan arms package in public since last week’s summit, saying only on Saturday that Xi understands his position on Taiwan.
After Perdue’s interview aired, the White House told the New York Times that the United States had no plans to sell arms to China. The State Department went further: “US law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.”
Trump’s level of commitment to protecting Taiwan has previously been questioned. At a meeting with Xi in Beijing in May, Trump said he was keeping a $14 billion Taiwan arms package in abeyance, describing it as a “very good negotiating chip” in dealings with China. The pending package followed a record multi-billion-dollar deal unveiled in December last year, and Taiwan has been waiting months for Trump to approve the new sale.
Washington has long maintained strategic ambiguity over whether it would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an invasion, but the decades-old Taiwan Relations Act obligates the United States to provide Taipei with sufficient military equipment to defend itself.
Beijing has repeatedly said it “resolutely opposes” Washington’s arms sales to the island democracy, which it regards as a breakaway province despite never having ruled it, and has not renounced the use of force to take control of Taiwan. During last week’s Washington meeting, Xi urged Trump to oppose “Taiwan independence,” according to a readout from the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.