By Javier Castro Bugarín
Taipei, Oct 5 (EFE).- The United States says its policy toward Taiwan “has not changed” following the recent summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but Taipei is still awaiting a $14 billion US arms package that analysts say could remain on hold until 2027.
After his Sep. 24 meeting with Xi in Washington, Trump appears focused on maintaining what he has described as a good relationship with the Chinese leader, with the two presidents potentially meeting twice more this year.
That could further delay approval of the arms package, William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst at the International Crisis Group, told EFE.
“This loss of priority for the arms package will undoubtedly make Taipei nervous about US commitment and support, especially if the reason is to avoid upsetting Beijing,” Yang said.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control.
The US, meanwhile, is Taiwan’s main arms supplier and has committed under law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
A “golden age” in relations
During the summit, Xi urged Washington to oppose “Taiwan independence,” according to the Chinese government’s account of the meeting.
The wording is stronger than Washington’s longstanding position that it does not “support” Taiwan independence.
The White House did not mention Taiwan in its public readout of the meeting, while Trump avoided discussing the issue in detail in public remarks, developments that some analysts in Taipei viewed positively.
“Taiwanese people pay a lot of attention to what Trump says about Taiwan, and his negative comments always grab headlines here. Not hearing anything about Taiwan from Washington is a reassuring sign,” said Wei-Ting Yen, an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Political Science.
Yen also pointed to what she described as “many positive signs” in the bilateral relationship, including strong bipartisan support for Taiwan in Congress, frequent visits by senior US delegations, and a growing number of US states opening commercial and technology offices on the island.
“Despite the delay in arms sales, and apart from Trump’s unhelpful rhetoric, many people in both governments refer to this period as a golden age of US-Taiwan relations,” said Michael Cunningham, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center.
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo said last week that Taipei had repeatedly received assurances from Washington that US policy toward Taiwan had not changed following the summit.
Uncertainty over arms sales
Nevertheless, Washington’s decision to keep the $14 billion package on hold has caused concern in Taiwan, which has faced increased Chinese military pressure in recent years.
Concerns intensified after Trump’s May meeting with Xi in Beijing, when the US president described the proposed arms sale as a “very good negotiating chip” and acknowledged discussing the issue with the Chinese leader.
That approach has drawn comparisons with the so-called Six Assurances issued by the Reagan administration in 1982, one of which was that Washington would not consult Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan.
“More than 60 percent of Taiwanese support strengthening our self-defense capabilities and purchasing more US weaponry, so hearing a comment like this causes a lot of concern,” Yen said.
Cunningham noted that successive US presidents have delayed arms sales during periods of diplomatic engagement with Beijing and said Trump was not the first president to discuss the issue with China, although he was the first to acknowledge doing so publicly.
“We believe Washington is most likely to approve the deal, broken into three or four sub-packages, starting late this year,” said Stephen Tan, managing director of the Taipei-based International Policy Advisory Group.
Taiwan is continuing to receive previously approved US weapons. On Friday, the island received the first two of 66 F-16V Block 70 fighter jets ordered from the United States in 2019.
Arms package becomes political issue
Taiwanese public opinion has reflected the uncertainty. Forty-seven percent of respondents in a recent poll by the United Daily News said they did not trust the United States to continue selling arms to Taiwan, while only 15% described relations with Washington as negative in a separate survey cited by Yen.
The researcher warned that the “real risk” was that growing doubts about US support could provide an opening for what she described as Beijing’s “disinformation campaigns” aimed at spreading “fatalism” among Taiwanese.
“I believe that if the current stalemate over the arms package persists, it could begin to affect the confidence of independent voters, and even those of the ruling DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), in US support for Taiwan in the near future,” Yang said.
For now, Taipei is receiving assurances that Washington’s policy has not changed, while continuing to wait for a decision on the new arms package. EFE
jacb-sk
