The latest phone conversation between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (習近平) focused on easing bilateral trade tensions and is unlikely to lead to a major shift in Washington’s Taiwan policy, analysts said.
Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chairman Richard Bush said via e-mail that the talks on Thursday were primarily aimed at preventing US-China relations from getting worse, particularly after Washington imposed export controls shortly after the “Geneva understanding.”
Bush, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank, said both sides were trying to “get back to where things were at the end of Geneva” through the call.
Photo: AP
Washington and Beijing last month reached a temporary deal during talks in Geneva, Switzerland, which led to a 90-day truce on sweeping tariffs they had previously imposed on each other.
China later said the US breached the deal by banning semiconductor sales to Huawei while Washington continued to complain about Beijing’s export controls on rare earth minerals and magnets.
As for Taiwan, Bush said Xi routinely brought up Taiwan in conversations with US presidents, but that segment was likely brief in the latest call, given that the two had a host of pressing trade issues to address.
Ryan Hass, another analyst at Brookings, said he “do[es] not expect that the presidential phone call will result in any major shifts in American policy toward Taiwan.”
Hass served as the director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia affairs at the US National Security Council from 2013 to 2017.
He pointed to the transcript of the call issued by Beijing and said Trump’s response to Xi’s concern over Taiwan “signaled continuity in longstanding American policy.”
The transcript said Xi urged the US to “handle the Taiwan question with prudence” and prevent “Taiwan independence” forces from “drag[ging] China and America into the dangerous terrain of confrontation and even conflict.”
The transcript cited Trump as saying that “he has great respect for President Xi ... The US will honor the one-China policy.”
Commenting on the call, the first between the two leaders since Trump began his second term in January, the Presidential Office in a brief statement on Friday said that it welcomed any “efforts that help stabilize the regional situation and curb authoritarian expansion.”
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