China opposes US arms sales to Taiwan ahead of Xi Jinping-Donald Trump summit

Although he has not been as explicit as his predecessor, Joe Biden, in expressing his support for the island, Trump has shown few qualms about approving major arms sales to Taiwan, such as authorizing, last December, a package valued at $11.1 billion, the largest acquired by Taipei to date.

The arms shipment was left out of the last face-to-face summit between the two leaders, held last October in South Korea, but Xi raised the issue again in a telephone conversation with Trump in February, in which he urged the US president to “handle the arms transfer prudently.”

After that talk, the Trump Administration put another major arms sale to the island on hold to avoid tensions with Beijing before the summit, according to the Wall Street Journal, although last week the Taiwanese Parliament approved a special defense budget with an allocation of about $12.7 billion to finance upcoming purchases of American equipment.

The other relevant point of the meeting will be US policy towards Taiwan, an issue in which every nuance matters: Washington’s official position is that it opposes “unilateral changes” to the status quo and that any differences between both sides must be resolved peacefully and without coercion.

Any change in that vocabulary – whether expressing “opposition” to Taiwan independence, support for “reunification” or greater alignment with the Chinese position on the island’s status – could be interpreted as a gesture towards Beijing and compromise the US response to an eventual conflict.

Last week, the Secretary of State of the North American country, Marco Rubio, tried to lower China’s expectations in this area, by emphasizing that both powers are interested in ensuring that “no destabilizing event” occurs in that part of the world.