TAIPEI — Taiwan said on Thursday (May 14) that nothing surprising had come out of a summit between Chinese and US leaders in Beijing, but that China should end its military pressure on Taipei as that is the real threat to peace.
China's Xi Jinping warned US President Donald Trump earlier in the day that disagreement over Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory and which relies on US arms, could send relations down a dangerous path and even lead to conflict.
Speaking in Taipei, Mainland Affairs Council deputy head and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh said that at virtually every China-US meeting, Taiwan is one of the most important topics on the agenda.
"So at this point, all we can say is that there has been no surprising information so far and we will continue to maintain close communication with the American side," he said, adding that comments about conflict had been made before.
The real threat to peace which risks triggering a crisis is China's ongoing military harassment, Liang said, not the desires of the Taiwanese people to maintain their way of life.
"If maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is truly the greatest common ground between China and the US, then the Chinese Communist Party should restrain its own behaviour of military intimidation," he added.
A White House read-out of the meeting made no mention of Taiwan and Trump did not respond when a reporter shouted a question about whether the leaders had discussed Taiwan as he posed for photos with Xi.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring democratically governed Taiwan under its control and its warplanes and warships operate around the island almost daily.
China has labelled Taiwan President Lai Ching-te a "separatist" and has warned that any attempt to push for formal independence for Taiwan could lead to war.
Liang said "Taiwan independence" was a false issue and what the government was pursuing was maintaining the status quo — the continued existence of the Republic of China, the island's formal name.
"In their view, buying weapons is 'Taiwan independence.' Arresting bandit spies is 'Taiwan independence'," he said, using an old Cold War term.
The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, who founded the People's Republic of China.
The US is Taiwan's most important international backer despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties and is its largest supplier of weapons.
Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future.
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