Taiwan is "confident" in its relations with the US, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said today, ahead of a meeting between the US and Chinese presidents in which the issue of Taiwan may come up.
Since taking office this year, US President Donald Trump has vacillated on his position toward Taiwan while pursuing a trade deal with Beijing.
Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has told him he would not invade while the Republican president is in office, but Trump has yet to approve any new US arms sales to Taipei.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The fear in Taipei is that the Trump-Xi meeting today in South Korea on the sidelines of the APEC summit could see some sort of "selling out" of Taiwan's interests by Trump to Xi.
Asked by reporters in Taipei about the meeting and whether Taiwan could come up, Lin said the government was "of course" paying attention to the talks, and that Taiwan and the US have close cooperation on security and other matters.
"So we have confidence in Taiwan-US relations, and have close communication channels," he added.
Over the past week, China has made a renewed push in its offer of a “one country, two systems” model to get Taiwan to agree to “reunification,” but has also reiterated it would not abandon the option of using force if needed.
No major Taiwanese political party supports the "one country, two systems" idea and yesterday, President William Lai (賴清德) said Taiwan must oppose "the advancement of unification."
Lin said Taiwan must defend the "status quo," which he said China was seeking to change.
"The so-called advancement of unification is to try and change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, so we must continue to defend peace in the strait and Taiwan's security," he added.
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