US President Donald Trump's advisers fear China will attack Taiwan within the next five years, Axios reports, following the American president's visit to Beijing last week.
A senior presidential adviser told Axios that Xi Jinping was "trying to move China to a new position where he's saying: 'We're not a rising power. We're your equal. And Taiwan is mine." The adviser added that "this trip signaled a much higher likelihood that Taiwan will be on the table in the next five years."
In an interview with Fox News published after his visit to China, Trump made remarks that led many to wonder about the US position on defending the island, although in principle there has been no change in the traditional American stance. "Neutral. It's been going on for years. Nothing's changed," he said. "I'm not looking for somebody to declare independence. We're supposed to fly 9,500 miles to fight a war, I'm not looking to do that. I want them to calm down, I want China to calm down."
Taiwan has functioned as a de facto state since Kuomintang forces and the government of the Republic of China fled there in 1949, after losing to Mao Zedong's Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War. Since then, China has claimed ownership of the island and regards it as a "rebel province." China has threatened that any Taiwanese declaration of independence would be met with military action and a takeover of the island.
Taiwan, which has functioned as a parliamentary democracy since the 1990s, is governed by the Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates Taipei's distinct identity from mainland China. Traditionally, the US has been seen as a guarantor of Taiwan's security, while maintaining a policy of ambiguity regarding how it would respond to a Chinese military move to unify the island by force.
In the background of these concerns is a Western intelligence assessment that Xi has ordered his military to be ready for military action to take over Taiwan by 2027.
Another senior adviser voiced concern over the impact such action would have on US access to the chip industry: "There is no chance we will be economically prepared. The semiconductor supply chain will not be anywhere close to independent. For executives, and really for the entire economy, there is no more urgent issue than this." In the same interview, Trump accused Taiwan of having "stolen" the American chip industry.
