US President Donald Trump appears to be downplaying the Taiwan issue, given his omission of the topic from public discussions of talks with China, experts said yesterday.
Only China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) highlighted “China’s principled position on the Taiwan question, underscoring that Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the post-[World] war [II] international order” during a telephone call between the two leaders on Monday.
A social media post Trump wrote about the call did not mention Taiwan.
Photo: AP
From Monday’s omission as well as Trump’s speeches over the past few months, it is evident that he wants to downplay the Taiwan issue in terms of US-China relations and Japan-China relations, Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Ding Shuh-fan (丁樹範) said.
The two also did not discuss Taiwan during their meeting the sidelines of this year’s APEC summit in South Korea, Ding said.
It is interesting that Trump wants to downplay the Taiwan issue, perhaps due to its sensitivity or perhaps because of leverage he can derive from it, Ding said, adding that the silence is a good thing for Taiwan on some level.
The US and China highlighting different parts of a conversation, while neither denying nor affirming what the other side said, is an established routine for US-China talks, said Yen Chen-shen (嚴震生), a professor in National Chengchi University’s Department of Political Science.
Trump was not in a position to support or criticize Japan’s position, and Washington and Beijing could only continue their discussions by refraining from commenting on the issue or refuting China’s comments, Yen said, referring to a spat between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on a potential invasion of Taiwan.
Once either the US or China have stated that it does not agree with the other on the Taiwan issue, it would likely be a moot point in future meetings, he added.
Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Washington-based German Marshall Fund, said that the telephone call might have been initiated by Trump, as he might have wanted to “solicit Xi’s help” given the attention on a Russia-Ukraine peace plan proposed by Trump.
“It is likely that Xi opted to use the opportunity to make a statement about Taiwan,” Glaser said in an e-mail.
Trump understands that Taiwan “is a third-rail issue in US-China relations” and has been “very cautious when talking about Taiwan, including when he has been asked whether the US would defend Taiwan if attacked,” she said.
Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, said that China does not expect the US to abandon Taiwan.
However, “Xi’s growing confidence in his relationship with Trump — and the warm afterglow of the APEC summit — has him sensing an opportunity to use Washington to gain diplomatic leverage against Tokyo,” he said.
Trump’s call was a chance for Beijing to gauge his administration’s stance on the issue, send the message that Washington should not support Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan and remind Trump of the highly sensitive nature of cross-strait issues, said Wu Xinbo (吳心伯), an adviser to the Chinese government and director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies.
“The US should handle the Taiwan issue very carefully,” Wu said, adding that he expects the issue to feature more prominently between now and Trump’s expected visit to Beijing in April.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and CNA
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