Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks on call with Donald Trump, rules out any major policy change

As U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump continued to fight criticism both home and abroad over his telephonic conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the latter broke her silence on the issue on Tuesday (December 6) seeking to downplay the episode. According to a report in Washington Times, Ing-wen said a phone call did not effect a policy shift between the US and Taiwan which China refuses to recognize.

"The phone call was a way for us to express our respect for the U.S. election as well as to congratulate President-elect Trump on his win," Washington Times quoted Tsai as she spoke to a few American journalists in Taipei. It was the leader's first public remark on her conversation with Trump on December 2 which shook the U.S.A.'s diplomatic circles and invited a restrained reaction from Beijing, especially after Trump tweeted about it the last weekend.

Sixty-year-old Tsai, who came to power in May this year, also said she did not expect any major change in the policy in the near future for the sake of stability in the region. Informed quarters saw Tsai's words as a mark of caution particularly in the wake of Trump's earth-shattering tweet over the call.

The conversation was historic for it was the first between an American president-elect and a Taiwanese leader in four decades. The US has followed the policy of recognizing China as the only legal government of the Chinese people and terminated diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In those days of the Cold War, realpolitik had demanded the American policy to get close to China to divide the Communist/Socialist camp. The Chinese, on their part, found a rapprochement with the Americans useful to deal with their strained relation with the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Trump might have given those historical aspects a little thought and did not hesitate to talk with the Tsai government but for China, it is a move alarming enough. Beijing, quite understandably, lodged a strong protest against America's 'rapprochement' with Taiwan this time.

The Barack Obama administration, however, got into a damage-control mode as two of its officials called their Chinese counterparts to reassure them that the US has not given up its 'One China' policy, said another Washington Times report.