Taipei (TIP)- The United States urged China to cease military pressure on Taiwan on Jan 1, days after Japan and Western countries voiced concern over escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait following two days of large-scale military exercises around the democratic island. “China’s military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan and others in the region increase tensions unnecessarily,” State Department spokesman Thomas Pigott said in a statement. “We urge Beijing to exercise restraint, cease its military pressure against Taiwan, and instead engage in meaningful dialogue.”
The United States, Pigott added, “supports peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and opposes unilateral changes to the status quo, including by force or coercion.”
The State Department’s criticism was the first public response by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to this week’s Chinese military exercises.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung welcomed the U.S. government’s statement, saying that Taipei “will continue to work with the United States and all like-minded nations to defend the rules-based international order.”
But under Trump, Washington — which is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties — has taken a softer approach to Chinese pressure on the island than its predecessors, as the White House looks to avoid friction with Beijing in a bid to seal a broad trade deal with the Asian powerhouse.
Trump, who is scheduled to make a state visit to the Chinese capital in April for talks with leader Xi Jinping, on Monday downplayed the exercises and the possibility of Xi ordering an invasion of Taiwan.
Beijing views the self-ruled island as its “core of core issues” and regards it as a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
“I have a great relationship with President Xi. And he hasn’t told me anything about it. I certainly have seen it,” Trump said when asked about the exercises. “I don’t believe he’s going to be doing it,” Trump said in apparent reference to a Chinese invasion of the island.
Asked if the exercises concerned him, he replied, “No, nothing worries me.”
“They’ve been doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area,” he added. “Now people take it a little bit differently.”
Japan’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Tokyo had presented its concerns to the Chinese side over the drills, which it said “constitute actions that increase tensions across the Taiwan Strait.” Japan, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, New Zealand and the European Union all voiced concern over the exercises before the U.S. On Friday, China called the exercises “completely legitimate, necessary and beyond reproach.”
“No one cherishes peace across the Taiwan Strait more than we do, yet we will never allow any individual or force to tie our hands in curbing ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities in the name of safeguarding cross-Strait peace,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a New Year’s speech Thursday in Taipei that the island is determined to defend its sovereignty and pledged to boost its defenses — something the Trump administration has demanded — in response to China’s growing pressure.
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