WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping has given him assurances that Beijing will not take any steps toward his long-stated goal of unifying Taiwan with mainland China while the Republican leader is in office.
Trump said the contentious issue of Taiwan did not come up in his talks with Xi on Thursday in South Korea, which largely focused on trade tensions between the United States and China. But the American leader expressed certainty that China will not take action against Taiwan while he is in office.
“He has openly said, and his people have openly said it in meetings, ‘We would never do anything as long as President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.
U.S. officials have long been concerned about the possibility of China using military force against Taiwan, the self-governed democratic island that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the United States to intervene militarily if China invades, but makes it U.S. policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and prevent any unilateral change in status by Beijing.
Asked whether he would order US forces to defend Taiwan if China attacked, Trump demurred. The United States, both Republican and Democratic administrations, have maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” in Taiwan, trying not to reveal whether the United States would come to the island’s aid in such a scenario.
“You’ll find out if that happens, and he understands the answer,” Trump said of Xi.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, did not directly respond to a question about whether Trump has received any assurances from Xi or Chinese officials about Taiwan. He insisted in a statement that China “will never allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China in any way.”
“The Taiwan question is an internal matter of China and is the core of China’s fundamental interests. How to resolve the Taiwan question is a question for the Chinese people and only the Chinese people can decide,” the statement added.
The White House also did not provide further details on when Xi or Chinese officials told Trump that military action in Taiwan was off the table for the duration of the Republican’s presidency.
The “60 Minutes” interview was recorded Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It marked Trump’s first appearance on the show since he settled a lawsuit this summer with CBS News over the news magazine’s interview with Kamala Harris.
The rest of the interview is scheduled to air later Sunday.