Donald Trump offered to sell weapons to China while hosting its leader Xi Jinping last week, the US ambassador to China said on Sunday. David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday: “President Trump keeps saying, hey, we sell guns to other people around the world. In fact, he asked President Xi if he would like to buy some at some point.” after a record multibillion-dollar deal was unveiled in December last year. Trump’s level of commitment to protecting Taiwan has been questioned before. At a meeting with Xi in Beijing in May, Trump said he would keep the $14 billion arms sales package to Taiwan on hold, describing it as a “very good bargaining chip” in dealings with China. Washington has long maintained a strategically ambiguous stance on whether it would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. But under the decades-old Taiwan Relations Law, it must provide Taipei with enough military equipment to defend itself. Beijing has repeatedly said it “resolutely opposes” Washington’s arms sales to the island democracy, which it considers a breakaway province, despite never having governed it, and has not renounced the use of force to take it. During their meeting in Washington last week, Xi urged Trump to oppose “Taiwan independence,” according to a readout by China’s official Xinhua news agency. After the Purdue interview, the White House told the New York Times that the United States had no plans to sell weapons to China, while the State Department said: “U.S. law prohibits the sale of weapons to China and there is no offer or plan to sell weapons to China.” Before the interview, Taiwanese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi spoke of the serious military threat that China posed. faces a serious situation in the Taiwan Strait. Even though China’s economy is declining, it continues to invest more resources in building military capacity. In “this context, the United States understands our defense needs very well,” he told reporters in Taipei. Trump has not mentioned the sale since last week’s summit, saying “it was only on Saturday that Xi understood his position on Taiwan.” even on the sale of weapons. With Reuters
