Trump: China doesn’t want Taiwan to ‘go independent’ following meetings with Xi
US President Donald Trump has said Taiwan’s independence movement has “always been” China’s “most important issue”, adding “they don’t wanna see it go independent”.
In an interview with Fox News following his three-day state visit to China — the first by an American president since his own in 2017 — Trump said Taiwan has been Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “most important thing”.
“I think they probably would do something pretty harsh, and then they would be met harshly, and bad things will happen … I don’t think they’ll do anything when I’m here.”
“When I’m not here, they might,” he said.
The official US position on Taiwan, a self-governing island which China claims as part of its own territory, is to acknowledge Beijing’s position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of it.
However, it does not explicitly endorse it, maintaining a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’.
The US is also overwhelmingly the largest supplier of arms to Taiwan, and the US’ Taiwan Relations Act mandates that the US maintain the capability to repel any hostile action against Taiwan.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has previously said Taiwan already sees itself as a sovereign nation and doesn’t need to declare formal independence.
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