{"id":57724,"date":"2026-05-18T09:54:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=57724"},"modified":"2026-05-18T10:00:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:00:46","slug":"taiwan-open-to-direct-talks-between-trump-and-lai-amid-concerns-after-beijing-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=57724","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan open to direct talks between Trump and Lai amid concerns after Beijing summit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Reuters) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

TAIPEI, May 18 – Taiwan \u200bwould welcome a direct call between President Donald Trump and President Lai Ching-te, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said \u200con Monday, as Taipei sought to ease concerns over Trump’s remarks following his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump and Xi discussed Chinese-claimed Taiwan<\/a> at their Beijing summit last week, with Xi warning of conflict if the issue was not properly handled. China has never renounced the use of force to bring the \u200bisland under its control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump made a range of different pronouncements about Taiwan, including that he was undecided on new arms \u200bsales, suggesting he might speak to Lai, and that the U.S. was “not looking to have somebody say, ‘Let’s \u2060go independent'”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A direct conversation between a sitting U.S. president and Taiwan’s leader has not occurred since Washington shifted diplomatic recognition to Beijing \u200bfrom Taipei in 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi told reporters that Trump’s remarks had “caused some unnecessary concern” in Taiwan even if the \u200bgovernment believed that “nothing has changed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen said that if Trump wants to speak with Lai then Taiwan would welcome it, if that is indeed what he meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of course, we would also ask: based on what you have said, does that mean you want to speak with our president? If he says yes, \u200bthen should we make the relevant arrangements? We very much hope to have such an opportunity,” Chen added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said that as \u200bSecretary of State Marco Rubio has said, “our Taiwan policy remains unchanged.” They did not elaborate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A White House fact sheet<\/a> released on Sunday about Trump’s trip made no mention \u200cof Taiwan, \u2060focusing mostly on trade, with brief references to North Korea and the war with Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) TAIPEI, May 18 – Taiwan \u200bwould welcome a direct call between President Donald Trump and President Lai Ching-te, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said \u200con Monday, as Taipei sought to ease concerns over Trump’s remarks following his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Trump and Xi discussed Chinese-claimed Taiwan at their Beijing summit last week, with Xi warning of conflict if the issue was not properly handled. China has never renounced the use of force to bring the \u200bisland under its control. Trump made a range of different pronouncements about Taiwan, including that he was undecided on new arms \u200bsales, suggesting he… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57726,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724\/revisions\/57726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}