Bloomberg
WASHINGTON — China has dismissed a Friday phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen as a “gimmick” by the island it considers a renegade province.
“This was a gimmick pulled off by Taiwan, and it won’t stand a chance to change the one China structure agreed upon in the international community,” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV. “The one China principle is the foundation for the healthy development of the Sino-U.S. relations, and we don’t want to see this political foundation disturbed and damaged.”
Trump’s transition team sent a statement saying Tsai congratulated Trump on his victory and the two “noted the close economic, political and security ties” between the U.S. and Taiwan. The statement didn’t indicate if the call presaged a shift in long-standing U.S. policy against recognizing Taiwan’s sovereignty or allowing direct communication between top leaders. The call lasted more than 10 minutes, Taiwan’s presidential office said in an emailed statement.
“The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!,” Trump posted on Twitter. “Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”
The call carried the potential to develop into the first major foreign policy incident confronting Trump as he prepares to take office Jan. 20. The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 when it recognized the government in Beijing. The U.S. has maintained a close relationship with the island —— often to China’s anger —— in the years since.
This is “unprecedented and is good news” for Taiwan, said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, director of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, who has written books about Taiwan. It’s “typical Trump. Unexpected, direct, and fast.”
“The U.S. support for Taiwan’s democracy and security is here to stay. Whether it will have an impact on China’s strategy of isolation of Ms. Tsai or not remains to be seen,” Cabestan said. “My hunch is that it won’t very much.”
Taiwan presidential office spokesman Alex Huang said good Taiwan-U.S. relations were as important as cross-strait ties. “It’s in line with national interests, and critical to regional peace,” Huang said. “Those are goals of the government and there’s no conflict among the goals.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping “does not want to be soft on any potential threat to China’s sovereignty, and Taiwan is and has long been the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship,” said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The Chinese will not take this as an indication of policy, but it will make them concerned and they will seek to provide some education to the incoming team.”
Glaser said there had never been a publicly announced phone call between a Taiwanese leader and a U.S. president or president-elect in the since diplomatic ties were broken.
The Taiwan contact was made public as part of a statement disclosing that Trump talked on the phone Friday with world leaders, including Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment. The Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
An Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House wasn’t notified about the call in advance.
White House spokesman Ned Price said “there is no change to our long-standing policy on cross-strait issues. The U.S. remains “firmly committed to our ‘one China’ policy,” he said.
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