TAIPEI (Dispatches) - Any conflict across the Taiwan Strait would have a bigger impact on the global economy than World War Two, and the upcoming U.S.-China summit is an opportunity to avoid miscalculations, the top U.S. diplomat in Taipei said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a defense forum in Taipei, Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, said there was no topic more timely or important than how to secure peace in the Taiwan Strait.
“Beyond the human toll, any conflict across the Taiwan Strait would have a bigger impact on the global economy than the Second World War,” he said.
“The United States under the Trump administration has made preserving peace in the Indo-Pacific one of its top priorities,” Greene added.
“The upcoming U.S.-China summit is an opportunity to further advance a relationship of strategic stability, on the basis of fairness and reciprocity, that can avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations,” Greene added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to travel to the United States later this month for a meeting with President Donald Trump.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, though it says it would prefer a peaceful outcome under a “one country, two systems” model of autonomy no major Taiwanese political party supports.
“The reunification of the motherland is an unstoppable historical trend,” Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Beijing reiterated that “Taiwan has never been a country and will never be a country,” in a fresh exchange in the ongoing dispute over a United Nations General Assembly resolution.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning accused what Beijing refers to as Lai Ching-te authorities of distorting Resolution 2758 and showcasing again what she called “their separatist nature for Taiwan independence.” Mao insisted that the UN resolution reaffirms the One-China principle.