TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan is “confident” in its relations with the U.S., Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Thursday, ahead of a meeting between the U.S. and Chinese presidents where the issue of the island Beijing claims as its own could come up.
Since taking office this year, U.S. President Donald Trump has vacillated on his position towards Taiwan while pursuing a trade deal with Beijing. Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping has told him he will not invade while the Republican president is in office, but Trump has yet to approve any new U.S. arms sales to Taipei.
The fear in Taipei, which has long enjoyed strong unofficial support from Washington, is that the Trump-Xi meeting on Thursday in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit could see some sort of “selling out” of Taiwan’s interests by Trump to Xi.
Asked by reporters in Taipei about the meeting and whether Taiwan could come up, Lin said the government was “of course” paying attention to the talks, and that Taiwan and the United States have close cooperation on security and other matters.
“So we have confidence in Taiwan-U.S. relations, and have close communication channels,” he added.
Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty.
Over the past week, China has made a renewed push in its offer of a “one country, two systems” model to get Taiwan to agree to “reunification”, but has also reiterated it will not abandon the option of using force if needed.
No major Taiwanese political party supports the “one country, two systems” idea and on Wednesday, President Lai Ching-te said Taiwan must oppose “the advancement of unification.”
Lin said Taiwan must defend the status quo, which he said China was seeking to change.
“The so-called advancement of unification is to try and change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, so we must continue to defend peace in the strait and Taiwan’s security,” he added.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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