Taiwan’s representative to the United States said Sunday his country only seeks to ensure the Communist People’s Republic of China does not “swallow” the island nation.
President Donald Trump met Thursday and Friday with Chinese President Xi Jingping in Beijing. Trump then appeared to signal a softening of America’s approach to Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China, in a Friday interview with Fox News host Bret Baier. Taiwanese representative Alexander Yui, while reacting to Trump’s statements from the interview, told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan his country was not exasperating tensions in Asia.
“President Trump doesn’t want a war 9,500 miles away. We don’t want a war, you know. We want peace and stability. We want to have our lives going as, you know, as usual,” Yui said. “But we’re not the ones creating all this trouble.”
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“And that’s why, you know, it’s like our house: those are intruders trying to get into our house; we’re trying to beef up our security system,” Yui continued. “And then they complain— the intruder complains that, because we’re trying to improve our security system, it’s making his job harder.”
For decades China has claimed Taiwan is a renegade province while the island nation has received military support from the United States. Yui, however, stated Taiwan was appreciative that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly stated during their time in Beijing there was no change in the U.S.’s “longstanding position” on Taiwan.
“What is meant by ‘Taiwan independence’?” Yui stated. “My president just made a statement recently, just now, and it means that Taiwan is independent from the Chinese aggression, from the PRC [People’s Republic of China], actually. The formal name of my country is Republic of China, and we’re not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China, in any way, at all, and that’s maintaining our sovereignty, our way of life, our democracy, our vibrant economy, our high-tech production. And that is, that is what is meant by ‘independence.’ We are sovereign, independent away from the Chinese People’s Republic of China’s attempt to swallow us as one of their own. They have never ruled or controlled Taiwan, ever.”
“It is self-evident that the ROC (Taiwan) is a sovereign democratic country. Beijing has no right to claim jurisdiction over Taiwan,” the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a Saturday statement. “The government of Taiwan will continue to deepen cooperation with the United States, maintain peace through strength, and ensure that the security and stability of the Taiwan Strait are not threatened or undermined. This serves the shared interests of Taiwan, the United States, and democracies around the world.”
“China’s military threat remains the primary source of regional instability, driving countries in the first island chain to strengthen their defense capabilities in coordination with the United States,” the statement continues. “US arms sales to Taiwan are both part of US security commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act and a key element of collective deterrence against regional threats.”
Whereas the Biden administration provided over $31.7 billion in defense articles to Ukraine, Taiwan received $1.41 billion between July 2023 and December 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported. Yui said the assets being provided included F-16 Block 70 fighters.
“We believe in peace through strength, so actually it makes more sense for United States to sell us the arms so we can defend ourselves and so you don’t have to send your army 9,500 miles away to defend us,” Yui told Brennan.
First unveiled in 2012, the F-16 Block 70 includes an advanced APG-83 radar and a new computer system, while still being able to fire a wide variety of air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions, including the AIM-120 AMRAAM, the AIM-9 Sidewinder, the AGM-65 missile, and precision-guided bombs.
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Republished with permission from Daily Caller News Foundation
