Chinese leader Xi Jinping has accused the US of trying to trick China into invading Taiwan, but he said it won’t take the bait, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the FT, Xi made the accusation during a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in April last year.
Xi has issued the same warning to officials in his own country, one source told the FT, but this would be the first time he made the claim to a foreign leader, the outlet said.
During the meeting, according to a press statement released at the time, Xi stressed that Taiwan was at the “core” of China’s interests and that “if anyone expects China to compromise and concede on the Taiwan question, they are having a pipe dream and would shoot themselves in the foot.”
Xi’s accusations against the US didn’t feature in the statement released last year.
For decades, the US has adopted a strategy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, positioning itself as the country’s most steadfast ally, while declining to explicitly say whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked.
But the mood in Washington, DC, seems to be shifting, with Congress showing itself more “overtly supportive of Taiwan than only a few years ago,” Graeme Thomson, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, told BI in November.
Last month, a US congressional delegation met with senior Taiwanese officials to discuss US-Taiwan relations, a few days after China conducted military drills around the island.
During the visit, Rep. Andy Barr, cochair of the Taiwan caucus in Congress, said there should be “no doubt” and “no skepticism” in the US, Taiwan, or anywhere in the world around “American resolve to maintain the status quo and peace in the Taiwan Strait,” according to the Associated Press.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that the US would defend Taiwan.
Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, told BI that Xi’s reported accusation is a sign that China is “genuinely surprised” and “shocked” by the US’ more recent “aggressiveness.”
“The US has plenty of public figures now talking of Taiwan like it is a new Ukraine, and some even saying it needs to be diplomatically recognized,” Brown added.
Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state under the Trump administration, and John Bolton, a former national security advisor, are among those calling for such a measure.
This is a problem for China, Brown said, as it is “clearly a red line and one that it will need to do something about if it is crossed.”
During a meeting in April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken not to cross China’s “red lines” on sovereignty, security, and development interests.
Brown, who served as First Secretary at the UK Embassy in Beijing from 2000 to 2003, said that behind Xi’s “complaint” is the hope that other Western allies “might just calm the US down.”
Whether it will have any impact at all is another matter, he added.
Last week, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the top US admiral in the Pacific, told The Washington Post that the US could deploy thousands of drones if China invades Taiwan, with the “unmanned hellscape” buying time for the US military to come to Taiwan’s aid.
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