Trump boasts Xi won’t dare move on Taiwan while he’s in charge

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: In a surprising revelation about US-China relations, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping privately assured him Beijing would not take any military action to force unification with Taiwan while Trump was in office.

Speaking in a clip from his upcoming 60 Minutes interview aired Sunday on CBS, Trump said that during his most recent meeting with Xi in South Korea, the topic of Taiwan didn’t come up. Instead, their discussions centred on trade tensions between the two countries. Even so, Trump expressed complete confidence that China would avoid any aggressive move against the self-governing island during his presidency. “He has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said.

His comments come amid ongoing concerns in Washington over China’s long-held goal of bringing Taiwan under its control — by force if necessary. The island, home to about 23 million people, has governed itself since 1949 but is still claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.

Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the US isn’t required to defend Taiwan militarily if China were to attack. However, it must help Taiwan maintain its ability to defend itself and oppose any unilateral efforts by Beijing to change the current situation.

When asked whether he would send US troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, Trump avoided giving a direct answer, sticking to America’s long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity”. “You’ll find out if it happens,” he said, adding that Xi “understands the answer to that”.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to confirm whether Xi had ever given Trump such assurances. Spokesman Liu Pengyu reiterated Beijing’s stance that Taiwan is an internal matter, saying, “The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair and the core of China’s core interests. How to resolve it is for the Chinese people to decide.”

The White House offered no additional details on when or how Xi might have made such a promise to Trump.

Trump’s remarks add a new twist to one of the world’s most delicate geopolitical flashpoints — and raise fresh questions about how far China might go to test US resolve over Taiwan once Trump is no longer on the political stage.