Taiwan urges China to stay calm

Taipei, Dec. 5: Taiwan urged China to stay calm on Monday after the Taiwanese leader’s unprecedented phone call to US President-elect Donald Trump angered Beijing, as residents and analysts in Taipei expressed fears at the possible fallout.

Ties between Taipei and Beijing have grown increasingly frosty since China-sceptic Tsai Ingwen took power in Taiwan in May, ending eight years of cross-strait rapprochement.

Beijing has since cut off all official communication with the self-ruled island, which it still views as part of its territory. The government values ties with (China) and the President has reiterated time and again that Taiwan will not go back to the old ways of confrontation

Tsai Ing-wen Ms Tsai’s call on Friday was the first between a Taiwanese leader and an incoming or serving US President since Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. China has protested to Washington at Trump’s breach. The incoming President responded with a Twitter broadside accusing China of currency manipulation and militarising the South China Sea.

On Monday Taiwan’s China affairs minister Chang Hsiao-yueh urged Beijing to consider the matter with a “calm attitude”. “The government values ties with (China) and the President has reiterated time and again that Taiwan will not go back to the old way of confrontation... I don’t think there is an act of provocation,” she said.

Taiwan President