WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would speak to his Taiwan counterpart Lai Ching-te about a possible arms sale in an unprecedented move that could roil US relations with China.“I’ll speak to him,” the US president told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before boarding Air Force One when asked about Lai. “I speak to everybody … We’ll work on that, the Taiwan problem.”Responding to Trump’s comments on Thursday morning, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Lai would be happy to speak to the US leader, according to Reuters.US and Taiwanese leaders have not spoken directly since 1979 when Washington severed formal ties with Taiwan to recognize the Beijing government. However, as president-elect in late 2016, Trump broke decades of diplomatic precedent when he spoke to then-Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.The political fallout from that call saw China’s government lodge a complaint with the US government, while Trump’s transition team played down the significance of the conversation.Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has never renounced the use of force to take control of the democratically governed island. It has been angered by longstanding US military support for Taiwan to deter Chinese military action.The US has long supported Taiwan and is bound by law to provide it with a means of self-defense, but has had to balance this with maintaining a diplomatic relationship with China.Trump hailed his relationship with China’s President Xi as “amazing”, on the back of a two-day summit in Beijing last week.When asked about the potential conversation between Trump and Lai, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday that China “firmly opposes official exchanges between the United States and Taiwan”, as well as US arms sales to Taiwan.China urges the US to “stop sending wrong signals to the separatist forces in Taiwan,” the spokesperson said.In 1979, the US passed the Taiwan Relations Act which states that the US can “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” — which is why it continues to sell weapons to Taiwan.Trump has said he has yet to decide if the sale of a $14bn (£10.4bn) arms package to Taiwan, reportedly including anti-drone equipment and air-defence missile systems, will go ahead.According to a report by the Financial Times, Beijing is currently holding up a proposed visit by the Pentagon’s top policy official, Elbridge Colby, saying it cannot approve a visit until Trump decides how he will proceed with the arms deal.During Trump’s visit to Beijing, China had made it clear that Taiwan was one of the biggest issues in its relationship with the US, with Xi warning of “conflict” between the two superpowers if handled poorly.And while Trump dismissed the potential for conflict between the US and China over the island, he said Xi felt “very strongly” about Taiwan. “I made no commitment either way,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One last week.Since the Trump-Xi meeting, Lai has issued statements saying that the island is a “sovereign, independent democratic country” and that peace in the Taiwan Strait will not be “sacrificed or traded away”.Lai has also emphasized that US arms sales were a “key factor in maintaining regional peace and stability”.
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