Taipei yesterday thanked US President Joe Biden for reiterating the importance of maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait in a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Tuesday.
The call was the leaders’ first conversation since their November summit in Woodside, California, which produced renewed ties between the two nations’ militaries and a promise of enhanced cooperation on stemming the flow of deadly fentanyl and its precursors from China.
“The two leaders held a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including areas of cooperation and areas of difference,” a White House readout of the call said.
Photo: AFP
Biden “emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea,” it said.
He pressed China over its defense relationship with Russia and its “unfair” trade policies and non-market economic practices, and raised concerns about human rights in China, including its treatment of minority groups and Hong Kong’s new restrictive national security law, officials said.
Meanwhile, Xi was quoted by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency as saying that there are three “overarching principles that should guide China-US relations in 2024,” namely, peace, stability and credibility.
Taiwan remains the “first red line not to be crossed,” Xi told Biden.
“In the face of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities and external encouragement and support for them, China is not going to sit on its hands,” Xi was quoted as saying in the English-language report.
The Chinese leader also called on the US to “translate President Biden’s commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ into concrete actions,” Xinhua said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked Biden for again publicly declaring the US’ resolute support for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
The US has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to Taiwan, which remains rock-solid, principled and bipartisan, the ministry said, adding that American Institute in Taiwan Chair Laura Rosenberger has reiterated that stance during her current visit to Taiwan.
As China’s military provocations and gray-zone tactics against Taiwan continue to intensify, Taipei welcomes and appreciates the international community’s continued calls for peace and security across the Taiwan Strait, the ministry added.
The roughly 105-minute call came before several weeks of high-level engagements between the two countries, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen set to travel to China today and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to follow in the weeks ahead.
Next week, Biden is to host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for a joint summit, at which China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region is set to be top of the agenda.
The two leaders reviewed and encouraged progress on key issues discussed at the Woodside Summit, including counternarcotics cooperation, ongoing military-to-military communication, talks to address artificial intelligence-related risks, and continuing efforts on climate change and people-to-people exchanges,” the White House said.
Biden also raised concerns with Xi over China’s “unfair economic practices,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, and reasserted that the US would take steps to preserve its security and economic interests.
Xi said that the US has taken more measures to suppress China’s economy, trade and technology in the past several months and that the list of sanctioned Chinese companies has become ever longer, which is “not derisking, but creating risks,” state-run China Central Television said.
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