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Donald Trump is convinced that Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attack Taiwan during his stay in the White House, according to the American secretary of the treasure, Scott Bessent.
Speaking on CNBC, Bessent said Trump was “convinced that President Xi will not make this decision during his presidency”. Bessent answered a question of knowing if he thought that China would attack Taiwan.
US intelligence officials said Xi said the Liberation People’s Army to develop the capacity to invade Taiwan by 2027, but they also stressed that this does not mean that 2027 is a deadline for war.
The White House did not answer the question of whether Bessent’s assertion was based on a new intelligence.
Tensions on Taiwan have increased significantly in recent years, and in particular since Nancy Pelosi in 2022 has become the first American speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
The APL quickly widened operations around Taiwan. Speaking at the Honolulu Defense Forum last month, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the American Indo-Pacific Command, said that the exercises were no longer only to train.
“Their aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan at the moment are not” exercises “, as they call them, these are rehearsals. . . For the forced unification of Taiwan on the continent, “said Paparo in response to a question from the Financial Times.
Bessent’s comments on China and Taiwan come as Taipei has become nervous that Trump’s position on Ukraine can announce a weakening of the support of the United States in the Asian country.
American-Chinese tensions increased during the Biden administration because the countries were at the head of a manger on a range of security related problems. Since Trump took up his duties, tensions have focused on trade. The American president imposed a tariff of 20% on imports from China.
The White House said that the prices had been designed to put Peijing to repress the export of the ingredients of the fatal fentanyl opioid.
He added that they were also intended to put an end to the group subsidies that make double-use chemicals sold to cartels in Mexico and used to produce fentanyl which is billed in the United States.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described Trump on Friday as “two-sided” and said Beijing was taking “Washington’s arbitrary pressure”.
“No country should fantasize that it can remove China and have good relations with China at the same time,” Wang said at a press conference. “Such two -sided acts are not good for the stability of bilateral relations or for mutual trust.”
Earlier this week, the Washington Chinese Embassy said it was ready to respond to any fight with the United States, including war. “If the war is what the United States wants, whether it is a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we are ready to fight until the end,” wrote the Embassy on the social media platform X.