President Donald Trump says that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given him assurances that Beijing would take no action toward its long-stated goal of unifying Taiwan with mainland China while the Republican leader is in office.
Trump said that the long-contentious issue of Taiwan did not come up in his talks with Xi on Thursday in South Korea that largely focused on U.S.-China trade tensions. But the U.S. leader expressed certainty that China would not take action on Taiwan, while he’s in office.
“He has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the CBS’ program “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.
U.S. officials have long been concerned about the possibility of China using military force against Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily if China invades but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.
Asked if he would order U.S. forces to defend Taiwan if China attacked, Trump demurred. The United States, both Republican and Democratic administrations, have maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan — trying not to tip their hands on whether the U.S. would come to the island’s aid in such a scenario.
“You’ll find out if it happens, and he understands the answer to that,” Trump said of Xi.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, did not respond directly to a query about whether Trump has received any assurances from Xi or Chinese officials about Taiwan. He insisted in a statement that China “will never allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China in any way.”
“The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair, and it is the core of China’s core interests. How to resolve the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese people ourselves, and only the Chinese people can decide it,” the statement added.
The White House also did not provide further details about when Xi or Chinese officials have conveyed to Trump that military action on Taiwan was off-the-table for the duration of the Republican’s presidency.
The “60 Minutes” interview was taped on Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It marked Trump’s first appearance on the show since he settled a lawsuit this summer with CBS News over the newsmagazine’s interviewwith Kamala Harris.
The rest of the interview is scheduled to air later Sunday.
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