Trump wades into China and Japan’s escalating dispute over Taiwan

HONG KONG — President Donald Trump spoke with leaders of U.S. ally Japan and rival superpower China amid the two countries’ escalating dispute over Taiwan.

Trump’s surprise call Monday with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, was followed by a call with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who angered China earlier this month with comments about Beijing’s claimed island democracy.

China and Japan have said Trump made the calls, which the White House has not confirmed.

The dispute began when Takaichi, elected last month, told lawmakers that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan, whose closest point is about 70 miles from Japanese territory, could threaten Japan’s survival and trigger a military response from Tokyo.

It was the first time such an explicit remark had been made by a sitting Japanese prime minister, who, like the United States, has long been deliberately vague about whether it could intervene militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan.

China, which describes Taiwan as its “core core interests,” reacted with outrage, taking the dispute to the United Nations, advising its citizens against traveling to Japan and seeking economic retaliation against Japan’s seafood, films, concerts and more.

China on Monday criticized Japan’s plan to deploy missiles on an island near Taiwan, calling it a deliberate attempt to “create regional tensions and provoke military confrontation”, while Japan dispatched a fighter jet after detecting a Chinese drone flying between Taiwan and the Japanese island of Yonaguni.

Although Takaichi has refused Beijing’s demands to retract his “erroneous” comments, his government says Japan’s policy toward Taiwan has not changed and that it continues to favor a peaceful resolution to the issue.

Trump has not commented publicly on the dispute, although his ambassador to Japan, George Glass, said Tokyo could count on American support in the face of Chinese “coercion.”

Takaichi said Tuesday that she reaffirmed Japan’s close cooperation with the United States during her call with Trump, which she said he initiated.

“President Trump mentioned that he and I were very good friends and that I should call him anytime,” she told reporters, according to Reuters.

Trump apparently hit it off with Takaichi during a visit to Japan last month, which was followed by a meeting with Xi in South Korea to address tensions between the world’s two largest economies over trade and other issues.

Trump said he had a “very good” call with Xi, the first since that meeting, and that U.S.-China relations were “extremely strong.”

“Significant progress has been made on both sides to keep our agreements current and accurate,” Trump said in a social media post. “Now we can see the bigger picture.”

Trump reaffirmed his plan announced last month to visit Beijing in April, followed by a visit by Xi to the United States later in the year. He said he and Xi discussed Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans, Russia’s war against Ukraine and the illicit international flow of fentanyl ingredients. Taiwan was not mentioned in Trump’s message.

That’s good news for Taiwan amid growing pressure from China and questions about Trump’s commitment to its security, suggesting that “from the American perspective, nothing has changed in Taiwan,” said Lev Nachman, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.

Xi also said the United States and China had “generally maintained a stable and positive trajectory,” according to an excerpt of the call published by Xinhua, China’s official news agency. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that the call was made by the U.S. side.

Contrary to Trump’s message, the Chinese reading of the call placed a strong emphasis on Taiwan, whose “return to China,” according to Xi, was an important part of the post-World War II international order.

Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, was ceded to the Republic of China government after Japan’s defeat in 1945, only for that government to retreat to Taiwan a few years later after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communist forces. The island has never been governed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Taiwanese Prime Minister Cho Jung-tai said Tuesday that for Taiwan’s 23 million people, there was “no option to return” to China.

“We must once again emphasize that the Republic of China is a fully sovereign and independent nation,” he told reporters in Taipei, using Taiwan’s official name.

The Trump-Xi call is a “very good signal” that strategic competition between the United States and China is under control, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University in China, although a “dramatic breakthrough is hard to imagine.”

Taiwan has not been a major topic in US-China relations in recent months, with Trump saying the issue “never came up” during his meeting with Xi. The Chinese minutes of their October 30 meeting also make no mention of Taiwan, which is unusual.

The Trump-Xi call comes after the United States announced two arms sales to Taiwan in the space of a week, the first since Trump returned to power in January. They include an advanced missile system worth nearly $700 million and $330 million in fighter jets and other aircraft parts.

China opposes such sales by the United States, which has no official relationship with Taiwan but is legally required to provide the island with weapons for its defense.

What China wants from Trump, Nachman said, is assurance that the United States will not loudly intervene in the Taiwan conflict on Takaichi’s behalf.

“From Beijing’s perspective, it is important that other countries realize that sanctions will be imposed on countries that take this pro-Taiwan stance,” he said.

Trump’s lack of comment on the issue, Nachman said, “tells me that the United States has no desire to talk publicly about Taiwan any more than it already has.”