When President Trump arrives in Beijing aboard Air Force One for a high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping, the top issue on the Chinese leader’s mind won’t be the global impacts from the Iran war and bottlenecked Strait of Hormuz.
Instead, Xi will be focused on Taiwan, the tiny island democracy in the western Pacific Ocean that China claims as its own.
Ownership of the island is the top issue in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. The U.S. has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity towards” Taiwan for decades, refusing to state whether or not it would intervene militarily if China attacked Taiwan. At the same time, the U.S. has sold more than $50 billion worth of arms to Taiwan for its national defense, allowing it to build asymmetric capabilities against China.
Late last year the U.S. approved a record $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which angered the Chinese. However, an even larger package worth $14 billion package is on Mr. Trump’s desk awaiting approval. Mr. Trump said he would discuss that package with Xi, a concession no other U.S. president has ever made and a violation of former president Ronald Reagan’s 1982 commitments to Taiwan.
Mr. Trump’s comments have raised the temperature in Taipei, with officials concerned that Mr. Trump could potentially sell Taiwan out to Xi. China wants Mr. Trump to change the U.S. government’s official language on Taiwan from saying that it “does not support” the island’s independence to saying that America “opposes” Taiwanese independence. While it may sound like a semantic issue, the tweaking of the diplomatic language could be consequential for Taiwan’s inhabitants.
Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister Chen Ming-chi told CBS News in a wide-ranging interview that he is not worried about the U.S. abandoning Taiwan, calling the country a “dependable ally” and pointing out that there are mutual benefits from the U.S.-Taiwanese partnership. Taiwan plays a key role in geopolitics and the global supply chain. The territory produces 90% of the world’s high-end semiconductors used for AI and defense technology.
“The U.S. can count on us as much as we can count on the U.S.,” Chen said. “Do we believe in the U.S. commitment? Yes. They are our reliable partner. Probably the most reliable partner.”
Xi has said that reunification of Taiwan with mainland China is “unstoppable.” China has proposed “one party, two systems” for Taiwan, the same model it uses in Hong Kong and Macau. Xi has also not ruled out taking the island territory by force. However, Xi may not have to take such extreme measures if China is able to get long-sought after concessions from the U.S.
Chen noted that China has become aggressive in the South China Sea and East China Sea, highlighting the country’s escalating military buildup and daily military exercises. Xi previously to his military to be prepared to take action in Taiwan in 2027, but a March U.S. intelligence report on global threats found that China would now not invade in the next year. Institute For National Defence and Security Research military analyst Dr. Liang-Chih Evans Chen said that recent wide-scale purges of China’s military command likely put Xi behind schedule.
“We won’t face the problem of the situation now, but we might face the problem in a few years,” he said. “I believe the threat remains.”
Chen, the deputy foreign minister, said that an overwhelming percentage of the Taiwanese population would never accept reunification. He said the public wants peace and stability.
“Since democratization we have enjoyed the freedom of speech, of democracy, a diversified society,” Chen said. “We’ve been through an authoritarian past. We see democracy is something we achieved. Taiwanese people cherish that very much. Se we will never accept the one country, two systems.”
Chen said that the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal crackdown on mass democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 showed the group’s true colors.
“What happened in Hong Kong was not particularly convincing to Taiwanese people,” Chen said. “Those people who want to speak up got brutally repressed. The (Chinese) Communist Party is not going to allow freedom of speech, human rights and societal diversity.”
“The people of Taiwan have not lived one single day under Chinese Communist Party rule,” Chen added. “How come we are part of them?”