Taiwan says there will be no new “stage of talks” with the US about selling arms
Taiwan’s government said on Monday that there are no new “stages of talks” with the US about selling arms right now. This is because the island is still thinking about how to best react to Donald Trump’s previous demands that Taipei pay for protection.
Taiwan is a freely run island that China claims. Trump, who won a second term as president last week, made Taiwan nervous by saying that China should pay for the U.S.’s defense and that China had taken away American semiconductor business.
Trump hasn’t said more about what he means by saying Taiwan should pay for its own defense, but people who know how the government thinks it might mean that Taipei is taking the call seriously by making big new arms deals early in his term.
The presidential office of Taiwan said in a statement that it was responding to media reports that the government was planning to buy a lot of weapons from the US. The statement said that Taiwan and its neighbors have continued to strengthen their defense deterrence in response to rising Chinese military threats.
This act “demonstrates their determination to defend themselves on their own” , said it.
The presidency said, “There has been a period of consolidation and discussion between Taiwan and the United States on military needs, but there is no new stage of discussion at this time.” They did not say more.
Taiwan, which disagrees with China’s claims to sovereignty, has said that it is waiting for $20 billion worth of weapons that it ordered from the US but never got.
Even though they don’t have diplomatic ties, the US is Taiwan’s biggest foreign supporter and arms supplier. However, they don’t have a defense treaty like Japan and South Korea do.
