https://ift.tt/PYrWU1E presidents of China and the United States discussed Taiwan during a video call last week, prompting suggestions that Beijing may be seeking a trade-off in response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s demand that his counterpart Xi Jinping withhold material support for Russian’s war effort in Ukraine.
The subject of appeared in public summaries of the discussion released by both sides. The U.S. readout mentioned Taiwan once, whereas the Chinese readout brought it up four times.
“To put it together, it somewhat shows that the United States wants to please China in exchange for something – literally [the] Ukraine situation and try to convince China not do anything stupid with Russia,” said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.
China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists lost to Mao Zedong’s Communists and rebased their government in Taipei. Beijing has not dropped the threat of force, if needed, to unite the two sides.
Since mid-2020, it has flown military planes over part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone almost daily. The Chinese Navy has been passing ships through a widening swath of the world’s waterways, especially in Asia and in the strait west of Taiwan.
Biden said the U.S. government “does not support ‘Taiwan independence’” or intend to seek conflict with China, according to Xi’s summary of remarks from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “I take these remarks very seriously,” Xi was quoted as saying.
“What’s worth noting in particular is that some people in the U.S. have sent a wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” Xinhua added. Xi called the signals “very dangerous.”
Former U.S. president Donald Trump had stepped up sales of weapons to Taiwan and increased the frequency of high-level visits to the island as he challenged China on issues from trade to military expansion around Asia.