Trump: Xi Promised No Taiwan Invasion Under My Watch

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump has claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping assured him Beijing would not attempt to "invade" Taiwan while Trump remains in office.

Speaking in an interview for Fox News on Friday, Trump said he had received direct guarantees from Xi that China would refrain from military action against Taiwan during his presidency.

“I don’t believe there’s any way it’s going to happen as long as I’m here,” Trump said on Fox News’ Special Report. “He told me, ‘I will never do it as long as you’re president’. President Xi told me that and I said, ‘Well, I appreciate that’, but he also said, ‘But I am very patient and China is very patient.’”

The comments came as Trump held a high-level talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which ended with no deal signed.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s claims.

China says that the self-ruled island of Taiwan is a breakaway province and claims control over the body of water that surrounds the island and separates it from mainland China, while insisting that Taiwan must be reunified with China, by force if it must.

On January 3, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said reunification with Taiwan is imminent, declaring that “nothing can stop” the historic move.

He said China is more confident and closer than ever to national revival and full reunification.

In April last year, President Xi Jinping asserted that foreign interference won't stop Taiwan's reunification, stressing that system differences don't change the fact of “one nation, one people.”