US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday.
Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday.
"But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that."
Photo: Reuters
Trump made the comments in the context of an exchange about what lessons Xi might take away from Trump's audacious military operation in Venezuela.
Trump said he did not view the situations as analogous, as Taiwan did not pose the same type of threat to China that he has said the government of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro posed to the US.
He also repeated his belief that Xi would not make a move against Taiwan during his presidency, which ends in 2029.
"He may do it after we have a different president, but I don’t think he’s going to do it with me as president," Trump said.
The Trump administration said in a strategy document last year that it aims to prevent conflict with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea by building up US and allies' military power.
“The Taiwan question is purely China's internal affair, and how to resolve it is a matter purely within China’s sovereign rights,” said Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington.
Trump has largely avoided directly saying how he would respond to a rise in tensions over Taiwan.
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