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Donald Trump

Taiwan: Trump call was not China 'policy shift'

Donna Leinwand Leger
USA TODAY
A combined photo of Donald Trump and Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — President-elect Donald Trump's controversial phone call with Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen does not signal a change in China policy and simply reflected "a way for us to express our respect for the U.S. election," the leader of this East Asian nation said here Tuesday.

"One phone call does not mean a policy shift," Tsai told USA TODAY. "We all see the value of stability in the region."

Trump’s 10-minute phone call Friday with Tsai overturned decades of diplomatic protocol. It was the first known contact between a U.S. president or president-elect and a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. ended formal relations with the island in 1979.

The call riled China, which considers Taiwan a province and not an independent country.

China's foreign ministry said Monday it had "no comment on what motivated the Trump team" to accept the call. It also accused Taiwan of playing a "small trick" on Trump. The president-elect even referred to Tsai as "president," a grave transgression from Beijing's point of view.

Taiwanese officials characterized China's response to the phone call as measured.

"China showed self-restraint," Chui-Chen Chiu, deputy minister of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said Monday. "It's still an ongoing event and we are watching."

U.S. officials from previous administrations have parsed their words carefully when dealing with Taiwan and most transactions between the U.S. and Taiwan take place at the bureaucratic level. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this week that it was "hard to determine exactly what the aim of the president-elect was ... and it's unclear what potential benefit could be experienced by the United States, China or Taiwan" because of the call.

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It was also unclear if the phone call, as The Washington Post reported, was long planned and thus a deliberately provocative act by Trump to demonstrate a hardline against China. He has consistently criticized Beijing for its protectionist trade policies and military operations in disputed territories in the South China Sea.

Local experts with close ties to Taiwan's government said they are certain the phone call required close planning.

"It's not an impulse of Trump to do this," said Szu-chien Hsu, president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, a government-backed agency in Taipei. Trump made the gesture to see how Chinese leader Xi Jinping will react, Hsu, a former political science professor, said.

Late Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to goad China. "Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into.. their country (the U.S. doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?" Trump said in two posts. "I don't think so!"

He also said that it was "interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call," language that potentially reflects his unorthodox approach to foreign policy to come.

Unlike her predecessor, Tsai, democratically elected in May, has not accepted a series of policy letters with China, known as the "1992 consensus." Both sides recognize a unified China, but they disagree on how a unified China should be governed. Tsai's policy agenda outlined in her inaugural address described her intent to seek more economic independence from China. That departure from the status quo provoked China to cut official communication with Tsai’s government. China has also curtailed some mainland tourism to the island. Taiwan expects a 60% drop in tourism this year.

The U.S. has accepted the “One China” policy since then-President Richard M. Nixon visited the country in 1972. President Jimmy Carter recognized the government in Beijing as legitimate in 1978.

Taiwan maintains a de facto embassy in Washington, D.C., under the pretense of an economic and cultural representative office located at its former Republic of China ambassadorial residence, Twin Oaks.

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