Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-Wen initiated phone call with Donald Trump, says island’s presidential spokesman
Call marks first such conversation between a Taiwanese leader and any US president or president-elect since 1979
It was Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen who initiated the unprecedented phone conversation with United States president-elect Donald Trump, following weeks of intense lobbying from Taipei, the island’s presidential spokesman told the South China Morning Post.
The call lasted slightly more than 10 minutes, but it marked the first such conversation between any US president or president-elect and a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when Washington severed formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.
The Trump transition team said Tsai congratulated him on his victory and he offered a similar sentiment for her January win in the polls.
The move is set to rock Sino-US relations and deeply anger Beijing.
Alex Huang, the Taiwan presidential spokesman, told the Post that the conversation was arranged through “the usual channel between Taiwan and the United States”.
“The call was initiated by Taipei through the liaison and agreement channels between our two sides,” he said in response to a Post question.