US President Donald Trump should stand by Washington’s commitment to provide defensive weapons to Taiwan, former US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Friday at a conference at George Washington University on US-China ties ahead of Trump’s planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing from March 31 to April 2.
Taiwan is likely to be on the agenda for both leaders, he said.
“I hope that President Trump and his administration will defend the long-standing, half-century ... one-China policy and our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act for the United States to provide defensive military technology to Taiwan to expand its deterrence ... and our obligation to keep sufficient military forces in the western Pacific to do that,” Burns said.
Photo: CNA
Trump should also discuss China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine with Xi, he said.
“China’s support for the Russian defense industrial base through the use of ... microelectronics has helped [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to conduct his brutal war in Ukraine,” he said.
The US’ agenda at the meeting with Xi should also include Beijing’s harassment of “atolls belonging to the Philippines” in the South China Sea, he said.
Burns said that the China policy framework of former US president Joe Biden was correct, as it emphasized the competition between the two countries, as well as the need to cooperate in climate change and other important global matters.
However, the strategic competition is of tantamount importance and Washington cannot afford negligence in insisting on US security interests and those of its allies, he said, adding he is concerned about Beijing’s human rights record.
China’s “outrageous” move to sentence Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) to what is “effectively a life sentence” and the forced Sinicization of Tibetan children were evidence of a disregard for human rights by Beijing, he said.
“There are no more civil rights for ... Hong Kong,” he said, citing his experience during a personal visit to the territory last year.
China reneged on its promise to the world to respect Hong Kong’s rights and traditions, which it made before the territory’s transfer in 1997, he said.
The Chinese Communist Party is in the middle of a large-scale operation to arrest and jail Christian leaders for their religious beliefs, he said.
Citing a visit in 2024, Burns said that authorities in China are enforcing policies in Inner Mongolia, with the aim of erasing the local culture.
He said that he agrees with Trump that the US must take action to stabilize global economic unrest in conjunction with China, but that cannot be at the expense of keeping silent about human rights.
Former US ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering told the event that the US cannot turn a blind eye to the threat China poses to Taiwan, even if the matter can seemingly be delayed.
The 1992 Shanghai Communique stipulates that Washington’s “one China” policy and a framework of dialogue that calls for regular and institutionalized exchanges between Taiwan and China, Pickering said.
Such exchanges require a degree of secrecy to keep the two sides’ differences under control, and should serve as a tool for both to seek common ground and develop their relationship, not provocation, he said.
Pickering said he does not mean that Taiwan should give up its aspiration for independence or that China should accept a situation it has long opposed, but that the two sides should find issues they can discuss.
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