Bloomberg
Date: August 24, 2018
By: Samson Ellis and Peter Martin
- Vows to oppose China from ‘interference in Western Hemisphere’
- ‘This has a flavor of the Cold War,’ Chinese academic says
The White House cautioned China against luring away Taiwan’s allies, in the latest sign
Taiwan Foreign Minister Discusses China Influence
that that trade friction between Washington and Beijing was expanding into a broader struggle for global clout.
In a harshly worded statement issued late Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the U.S. would rethink relations with the Central American nation of El Salvador after it cut ties with Taipei this week in favor of Beijing. Sanders said the U.S. would seek to deter Chinese efforts to forge new diplomatic bonds in the region.
“The El Salvadoran government’s receptiveness to China’s apparent interference in the domestic politics of a Western Hemisphere country is of grave concern to the United States, and will result in a reevaluation of our relationship with El Salvador,” she said. “The United States will continue to oppose China’s destabilization of the cross-strait relationship and political interference in the Western Hemisphere.”
While the statement threatened no specific action, it represented a potentially significant shift in the Trump administration’s posture toward China. The U.S. has tolerated both China’s growing influence in Latin America and its recent efforts to lure allies from the democratically run Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory. [FULL STORY]
