By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Tuesday that he was not worried that U.S. President Donald Trump would "abandon" the island in his meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
Since taking office earlier this year, Trump has vacillated on his position towards China-claimed Taiwan as he seeks to strike a trade deal with Beijing. Trump says Xi has told him he will not invade while the Republican president is in office, but Trump has yet to approve any new U.S. arms sales to Taipei.
The fear in Taipei, which has long enjoyed strong unofficial support from Washington, is that the Trump-Xi meeting this week in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit could see some sort of "selling out" of Taiwan's interests by Trump to Xi.
'WHO WOULD SELL OUT TAIWAN?'
Asked whether he was worried Trump - who said on Friday that Taiwan would be among topics discussed with Xi - would "abandon" Taiwan at the Xi talks, Lin told reporters in Taipei: "No, because our Taiwan-U.S. relations are very stable."
"No matter whether on security, trade and business and other areas, there is close cooperation," he added.
Taking lawmakers' questions later on Tuesday, Premier Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and the United States shared common international interests.
"There should not be any missteps in the course of the negotiations; that is our expectation," Cho said.
Asked by a legislator whether Taiwan would be "sold out" at the Trump–Xi meeting, Cho answered: "How could that be? Who would sell out Taiwan?"
The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but is bound by law to provide the democratically governed island with the means to defend itself, and the issue is a frequent irritant in Sino-U.S. relations.
The APEC forum is one of the few international groupings that Taiwan takes part in, though it does not send its president to avoid political problems with China.
CHINESE PROBE INTO TAIWANESE LAWMAKER
Speaking at the airport before leaving for South Korea, Taiwan's APEC representative, former economy minister Lin Hsin-i, said the summit was a good opportunity for "equal interactions" with other members attending.
China has offered a "one country, two systems" model of autonomy to Taiwan, which all major parties in Taiwan have rejected. In the past five years, Beijing has ramped up military and diplomatic pressure against Taiwan, including regularly sending warplanes and warships into the skies and waters near the island.
In a commentary on Tuesday, China's official Xinhua news agency lambasted "separatists" but said the "situation will only become increasingly favourable for the just cause of supporting reunification".
Both sides can sit down and negotiate a "reasonable 'one country, two systems' solution" for Taiwan, which will respect Taiwan's existing social system, it added.
Taiwan's government says Beijing has no right to claim or speak for the island internationally, and that only the Taiwanese people can decide their own future.
Also on Tuesday, police in the Chinese city of Chongqing said they had opened a probe into Taiwanese lawmaker Puma Shen, from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, for engaging in "separatist" activity, although China's legal system has no jurisdiction in Taiwan.
Shen said he believed this was the fifth or sixth time China had sanctioned him, but this time it was raising the possibility of making "arrests extra-territorially in the future".
"This intimidation tactic and lawfare approach represent China's current overt strategy against Taiwan. This is not targeting me personally - it's meant as a warning to others," he said in a statement.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Roger Tung; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Stephen Coates, Michael Perry and Alison Williams)
