Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Price if he is able to convince Chinese dictator Xi Jinping to abandon the use of force against Taiwan.
The regime in Beijing angrily denounced Lai for “prostituting” himself to curry favor with the United States.
Lai was a guest on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show in the United States when he made his comments about Trump.
“We hope to continue receiving President Trump’s support. Should President Trump persuade Xi Jinping to permanently abandon any military aggression against Taiwan, President Trump would undoubtedly be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,” he said.
Lai said he would advise Trump to “pay particular attention to the fact that Xi Jinping is not only conducting increasingly large-scale military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, but is also expanding military forces in the East China Sea and South China Sea.”
Lai added that the threat posed by China “extends beyond merely annexing Taiwan.”
“Once Taiwan is annexed, China will gain greater strength to compete with the United States on the international stage, undermining the rules-based international order,” he warned.
“Ultimately, this will also impact U.S. homeland interests. Therefore, I hope President Trump will continue to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Lai promised Taiwan would demonstrate its resolve for defending itself against Chinese aggression with increased military spending, as President Trump has requested. Trump wants Taiwan to increase defense spending to ten percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a call “strongly supported” on Tuesday by his nominee to become the senior Pentagon official for the Indo-Pacific region, John Noh.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office fired back with a belligerent statement accusing Lai of “spouting nonsense” during his U.S. radio interview.
The Chinese government said Lai has “engaged in unprincipled foreign pandering and bottomless selling out of Taiwan, squandering the flesh and blood of the people, prostituting himself and throwing in his lot with foreign forces.”
“Lai Ching-te and the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces are but ants shaking a tree: they will ultimately be swept into the dustbin of history,” the Communist statement raved.
“We have a firm will, strong determination, and powerful capabilities to crush all ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities and external interference, safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and protect the safety and well-being of the people of Taiwan,” the statement threatened – proving exactly the point Lai was making during the radio interview that so enraged Beijing.
On Thursday, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry released a report that found China was “increasing the frequency of its military activities around Taiwan and developing new equipment to hone its abilities to attack,” just as Lai said during his interview.
The report also found China is using A.I.-enhanced “hybrid warfare” to weaken Taiwanese public support for Lai’s administration and his plans to increase defense spending.
The report said Taiwan is placing a greater emphasis on anti-drone tactics during its military training, and is eager to purchase top-of-the-line drone defense systems, because drone weapons would figure prominently in any Chinese Communist invasion plan, and drones are already a key element of China’s “grey zone” information warfare campaign.
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