US arms sales to Taiwan should not be used as leverage by the White House, after US President Donald Trump said the sales were a “very good negotiating chip” in dealings with China, two US experts said on Saturday.
In a Fox News interview that aired on Friday after Trump concluded a trip to China, during which he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the US president said he was weighing whether to approve a US$14 billion arms package for Taiwan.
“I may do it, I may not do it,” he said. “I’m holding that in abeyance, and it depends on China, it depends,” he said when asked about the issue. “It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly. It’s a lot of weapons.”
Photo: cnsphoto via Reuters
En route to Washington from China, Trump also told reporters aboard Air Force One that he would ultimately “make a determination over the next fairly short period” about the weapons after speaking to the person “that’s running Taiwan,” without specifying whom he meant.
Asked to comment, Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund, expressed concern that Trump’s views on Taiwan “may have been influenced by the lecture he received from Xi” during his just-concluded trip to Beijing.
“I hope that members of his [Trump’s] team have an opportunity to provide him with a more balanced and accurate perspective,” she said.
“Trump says he wants to avoid war. Providing arms to Taiwan will help prevent conflict, not provoke conflict. Taiwan should never be used as a bargaining chip,” she said.
Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, expressed similar concerns in a commentary published on Saturday.
“Trump’s public openness to negotiating with Beijing over America’s posture on Taiwan will serve as the diplomatic equivalent of a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull,” he wrote in the article titled “Trump’s Dangerous Taiwan Gamble.”
“It will cause Beijing to intensify its efforts to test the boundaries of what it can gain in terms of loosening America’s commitment to Taiwan’s security,” he wrote.
Trump was essentially “giving up credibility without extracting benefits from Beijing,” said Hass, who was director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia affairs at the White House National Security Council during former US president Barack Obama’s second term from 2013 to 2017.
“This is not just a policy shift. It is a shift from deterrence to dealmaking in a domain where there is no deal to be made, beyond offering unilateral concessions that undermine deterrence,” he said.
If Trump wants to reduce cross-strait risks, bargaining Taiwan away is not a good option, he added.
Instead, Washington should remain “firmly focused on upholding peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and keeping a path open for leaders on both sides of the Strait eventually to resolve their differences,” Hass wrote.
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