China has expressed "extreme concern" about president-elect Donald Trump's remarks that he is reconsidering how the US deals with self-ruled Taiwan and that he does not necessarily have to hold to the "one-China" policy.
The policy means Washington has formal ties with mainland China and sees Taiwan as part of “one China”. The US agrees not to recognise Taiwan as a country, but still maintains unofficial relations and has agreed to support Taiwan should China ever invade.
“We urge the new US leader and government to fully understand the seriousness of the Taiwan issue, and to continue to stick to the one-China policy,” said Geng Shuang, spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry.
China sees Taiwan as a rogue province.
“The one-China policy is the political foundation of any diplomatic relationship between China and the US, and if this basis is destroyed, then healthy and stable relationship between China and the US is out of the question,” Mr Geng said.
He made his remarks after Mr Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday: “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
Earlier this month, Mr Trump took a telephone call from Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen, prompting a formal protest from Beijing.
Taiwan has been a self-ruled rival of China since 1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalists who had been supported by the US, fled to Taiwan after losing the Civil War to the Communists.
Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979 from Taiwan, which has a population of 23.5 million compared to China’s 1.3 billion people.
Earlier, a commentary in the Global Times tabloid, which is published by the Communist Party’s official organ, the People’s Daily, called Mr Trump as naïve as a child.
“With Trump’s new remarks on Taiwan, many people marvelled at Trump’s commercial thinking and naivety for diplomacy,” the editorial said.
“We will learn more about how he interprets the one- China policy after he is sworn in. Meanwhile, China needs to be fully armed and prepared to take a Sino-US rollercoaster relationship together with Trump. And many others in the world will probably also need to fasten their seatbelts,” it said.
