By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI, Sept 26 (Reuters) – The United States providing weapons to Taiwan to protect its freedom and provide semiconductors to the world is in the US national interest, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said on Saturday following a summit between the Chinese and US presidents.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ended a three-day summit on Friday with no big public breakthroughs on a host of contentious issues, including Taiwan which Beijing views as its own territory.
Xi told Trump in Washington on Thursday that he hoped the US would adhere to the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu asked whether making concessions on Taiwan would actually serve US interests.
Maintaining military sales, giving Taiwan sufficient capability to defend itself so it does not have to live under Chinese rule and “allowing Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to continue contributing to the world, these are important US interests”, Wu said.
Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, is the main producer of the advanced chips powering the AI revolution.
Trump, who in May after meeting Xi in Beijing said he was holding a package of arms sales to Taiwan in abeyance, has yet to make any comments on Taiwan following the Washington meeting or what he will do about the pending weapons package.
ARMS SALES
Wang Hung-jen, a political science professor at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, said so far the outcome of the summit was better than had been expected, with Xi not apparently directly raising arms sales and Taiwan not the main focus.
“Looking at the results, many things we thought would be very bad didn’t happen,” he said.
Wu said the government had been in “continuous communication” with Washington about the summit.
The Trump administration in December approved an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, the largest ever, and the second one is worth even more – some $14 billion.
As to whether a decision on that could be delayed further, given Xi and Trump are expected to meet twice more this year at the APEC and G20 summits, Wu said the government had to pay close attention.
“Of course, if we can get guarantees, that would be best,” he added. “I think what we can do right now is probably the maximum, which is to prepare as much as possible, communicate as much as possible, and make requests as much as possible.”
David Perdue, the US ambassador to China, told CNBC on Friday that there has been no change in Taiwan policy by Trump, including on the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act which mandates arms sales to the island.
“We want peace across the strait. We don’t want coercion. We don’t support independence and we think that, you know, President Xi has gotten that message. President Trump has shown respect and listened to their side of that argument,” Perdue said.
On Saturday, China’s top newspaper, the People’s Daily, reiterated in a commentary that Taiwan is “the core of China’s core interests and the first unbreakable red line in China-US relations”.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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