By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI, May 20 (Reuters) – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Wednesday said if he got the opportunity to speak to U.S. President Donald Trump, he would say China was undermining peace and nobody has the right to “annex” the island, drawing an angry reaction from Beijing.
A conversation between the two presidents has not taken place since Washington shifted diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taipei in 1979.
Lai faces not only pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own and calls him a “separatist”, but also from the U.S., traditionally its most important supporter.
Last week following a summit with China’s Xi Jinping, Trump said he was undecided on further arms sales to Taiwan, which he said were a “good negotiating chip” and that he was “not looking to have somebody say, ‘Let’s go independent”.
Trump also suggested he might call Lai.
OPEN COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Asked at a news conference marking two years since taking office what he would tell Trump, Lai said communication channels between Taipei and Washington have always been open and that if he had the opportunity he had a responsibility to “express the voice of Taiwanese society”.
Lai said he would emphasise several points.
“My government is committed to maintaining the status quo, and Taiwan is also a guardian of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said at the presidential office in Taipei.
“Second, China is the one undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Lai added, pointing to China’s expanding military presence and exercises that have already extended into the western Pacific, causing tensions in the Indo-Pacific region to rise.
“The Republic of China, Taiwan, is a sovereign and independent country,” he said, referring to Taiwan’s formal name and reiterating his stance.
“No country has the right to annex Taiwan. The people of Taiwan pursue a democratic and free way of life, and democracy and freedom should not be regarded as provocation.”
Taiwan hopes U.S. arms sales can continue, as U.S. military procurements are “necessary means to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”, he said.
CHINA CRITICISES LAI
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Lai’s comments were “filled with lies and deception, hostility and confrontation.”
“We will never allow anyone or any force, under any pretext, to carry out separatist schemes for ‘Taiwan independence,'” it said in a statement. “The tide of the motherland’s eventual and inevitable reunification is rolling forward and cannot be stopped.”
Taiwan reported a rise in Chinese activities around the island on Tuesday and it took the rare step of publishing pictures taken by its forces of a Chinese fighter jet and a warship, normally only something it does during full war games.
Earlier in the day at a regular news conference at the same time as Lai’s, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the military operation was a warning to separatist forces and a “necessary and just action”.
LAI URGES TALKS
Lai, in a speech before taking media questions, repeated that Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its people and not by “external forces”.
Taiwan was willing, on the principles of parity and dignity, to engage in healthy and orderly exchanges with China, but rejected efforts that “package unification as peace”, he said.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, though says it would prefer “peaceful reunification” and has offered a “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, which no major Taiwan political party backs.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Kate Mayberry and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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