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Source: Global Times-Global Network

[Global Times-Global Network reporter Li Meng] At the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 23, a reporter asked, "It is reported that a US State Department spokesperson recently stated in response to an inquiry that "Taiwan has purchased billions of dollars worth of military equipment from the United States. These arms purchases support the United States' manufacturing, industry, and technology. This is not any form of charitable aid from the United States." What is the spokesperson's comment on this?

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning Image from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In response, spokesman Mao Ning said that the United States is doing business of making money from the hard-earned money of the Taiwanese people under the guise of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan is China's Taiwan, not a pawn of the United States to interfere in China's internal affairs. The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan violate the one-China principle and the three Sino-U.S. joint communiqués, and China firmly opposes it.

Further reading

Trump: Taiwan is 15,000 kilometers away from the United States and mainland China can directly bomb Taiwan

Trump only cares about money!

On June 25, Trump accepted an exclusive interview with Businessweek, a subsidiary of Bloomberg. When the reporter asked whether the United States would protect Taiwan from attacks by the mainland if Trump was elected, Trump did not directly answer the question, but instead emphasized with certainty that Taiwan should pay protection fees to the United States.

Trump says Taiwan should pay protection fee

This interview was published after Trump was shot and immediately caused an uproar on the island of Taiwan.

Lai Ching-te’s administration responded immediately.

On July 17, Taiwan's Executive Yuan chief, Toh Jung-tai, said that Taiwan-US relations are very firm. Maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region is everyone's common responsibility. Taiwan is willing to take more responsibility to defend Taiwan and ensure security.

Although he didn't say it explicitly, Zhuo Rongtai's hint was very clear. The so-called willingness to take on more responsibilities actually means being willing to pay more money.

Taiwanese society was in an uproar, with the reactions of the media, experts, scholars, and politicians concentrated on two aspects: first, they firmly disagreed with Trump's threats; second, politicians were all shouting for peace, and no one mentioned unification.

I have discussed this topic many times. Almost all Taiwanese people know that the mainland hopes that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can be peacefully unified, but many Taiwanese people, especially politicians, seem to have amnesia. They clearly know that the mainland hopes for peaceful reunification, but in their mouths, there is only peace, not reunification.

If we allow this ostrich mentality to continue, the consequences will be serious, because this will trigger one of the conditions stipulated in the mainland's "Anti-Secession Law" for resolving the Taiwan issue through non-peaceful means, and the possibility of peaceful reunification will be completely lost.

Let’s get back to Trump.

Why does Trump feel so confident about collecting protection fees from Taiwan?

There are three reasons:

First, the whole world owes the United States.

This has been Trump's view all along. Not only does Taiwan owe the United States, the mainland owes the United States (so during Trump's first term, China and the United States raised tariffs on each other), but even the United States' allies, including Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other NATO countries, owe the United States. There are two foundations to support Trump's view: one is the huge military expenditure of the United States, which protects allies and friends around the world (Taiwan), and the protected are ungrateful and ungrateful; the other is that the United States has a trade deficit of 1 trillion US dollars every year, and the whole world is taking advantage of the United States and fleecing the United States. This cannot continue.

Trump is "drooling over" TSMC. The picture shows the TSMC logo.

Second, the crime of possessing a treasure lies with both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Trump can be said to be "drooling over" Taiwan's semiconductor industry, represented by TSMC. On the one hand, he feels that Taiwan's semiconductor industry was stolen from the United States; on the other hand, he feels that the reason why the mainland is reluctant to use force to recover Taiwan is because the mainland also has its eyes on Taiwan's semiconductor industry and is afraid that using force will damage related factory equipment.

In an interview with Business Weekly, Trump repeatedly mentioned that in the eyes of the mainland, Taiwan's semiconductor industry is the "apple of the palm." Trump even used parallelism, saying "apple of the palm" three times in a row.

This is what he said: "It's the apple of China's eye. It was the apple. It's the apple of his eye."

Third, they have little interest in protecting Taiwan but are very interested in collecting protection fees.

Business Weekly’s question was very clear: whether the United States would use force to protect Taiwan.

Trump declined to answer the question.

Trump said that Taiwan is 9,500 miles (about 15,289 kilometers) away from the United States and only 68 miles (about 109 kilometers) away from the mainland, and the mainland can even directly bomb Taiwan.

What Trump meant was that the United States does not have enough time to protect Taiwan.

Trump refuses to answer whether the United States will use force to protect Taiwan

The author analyzed that Trump's real idea is that the United States has the most powerful military in the world, so it should be no problem to protect Taiwan, but it is not worth it. If TSMC can be moved to the United States, there is no need to protect Taiwan. Before the mainland recovers Taiwan, it should receive as much protection money as possible from Taiwan, which is the most important thing.

As protection fees become a hot topic, Taiwan's China Times published an editorial today. The title of this editorial is: "It is better to improve cross-strait relations than to pay protection fees to the United States."

The China Times is a very representative blue camp media.

As always, this editorial talks only about peace, not about unification.

Currently, among the influential politicians on the island, Ma Ying-jeou is one of those who links "peace" and "unification" together and loudly calls for "peaceful unification."

Ma Ying-jeou is likely to become a key figure in promoting peaceful reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Let’s talk about this topic later.