US president-elect Donald Trump said he would “never say” if Washington is committed to defending Taiwan from China, but “I would prefer that they do not do it [ an attack],” adding that he has a “good relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
“I never say because I have to negotiate things, right?” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker after saying he would not reveal his incoming administration’s stance on Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack.
Asked the question again, Trump, in a reference to China, said: “I would prefer that they do not do it.”
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Trump said he has talked with Xi since his election and communicated with him as recently as three days before the interview.
Asked if he told Xi that China must not invade Taiwan in the most recent exchange, Trump said: “We did not talk about that.”
“I have a very good relationship [with Xi] and I hope he does not do it,” he added.
Separately, Japanese media reported that Washington is to reconstitute the US forces in Japan as a joint force headquarters under the Indo-Pacific Command.
The move would enable the US to use the planned headquarters to facilitate coordination between the Indo-Pacific Command and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), Kyodo News said.
The two nations would create a task force to oversee the headquarters’ establishment, it said.
The JSDF are creating a Joint Operations Command, which is expected to be operational before the end of this year, to interface with the proposed US headquarters, it said.
The reorganization of the two nations’ forces was among the subjects discussed in the US-Japan 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in July, Kyodo News said.
Lieutenant General Stephen Jost, commander of US Forces in Japan, and Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani discussed the matter at their intelligence-sharing meeting in October, it said.
The reflagging was part of US lawmaker’s addendum to the US$895.2 billion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 proposed by the US Department of Defense, it said.
The conditions, which included the conduct of specific joint activities between the US and Japanese forces, must be implemented within 180 days of the bill’s expected passage by the US Congress, it said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
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