Taiwan’s government on Saturday pressed the case for U.S. arms supplies, saying they are based on U.S. law and serve as a shared deterrent to regional threats, after President Donald Trump said he had not decided on future sales.
Despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. is the most important international backer for democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. Washington is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide weapons to the island. But on Friday, after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Trump said he had not decided whether to proceed with a major weapons sale, adding to uncertainty about U.S. support for Taiwan.
In a statement, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s spokesperson Karen Kuo said China’s escalating military threat is the “sole destabilising factor” in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Taiwan Strait. “Furthermore, military sales between Taiwan and the U.S. are not only a reflection of the U.S. security commitment to Taiwan as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act, but also serve as a mutual deterrence against regional threats,” she said.