Taiwan warns US about China’s regional ambitions as Trump weighs arms deal
Fox Business correspondent Lydia Hu reports live on Taiwan’s top diplomat, Alexander Yui, sharing a warning about China as President Donald Trump weighs a proposed $14 billion arms package for the island. Yui stresses that Taiwan acts as a front-line defense, preventing China’s wider ambitions. Taiwan’s semiconductor production, 90% of the world’s advanced chips, makes US support critical.
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China has deployed over 100 vessels in the waters surrounding Taiwan in the week following President Donald Trump’s Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the secretary general of Taiwan’s National Security Council said Saturday.
“Our ISR/intel shows that the PRC has deployed over 100 vessels around the 1st Island Chain over the past few days, so soon after the Beijing summit,” Secretary General Joseph Wu wrote on X.
“In this part of the world, China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the Status Quo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu concluded.
Wu posted a graphic appearing to show a high volume of Chinese vessel deployments in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and near Taiwan and The Philippines.
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A Taiwanese graphic showing alleged Chinese ship deployments near Taiwan and the broader Indo-Pacific region. (Taiwan National Security Council)
Wu alerted the world to the ship deployments a little more than a week after Trump left Beijing and just days after Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao told U.S. lawmakers that the U.S. was temporarily pausing weapons shipments to Taiwan.
“Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury,” Cao testified during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao testifies during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing titled “The Posture of the Department of the Navy in review of the Defense Authorization Request for FY2027 and the Future Years Defense Program,” in the Dirksen building on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
U.S. lawmakers approved a $14 billion weapons package to be sold to Taiwan in January, though Trump has yet to sign off on it.
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Taiwanese officials say they were not alerted to any potential pauses, according to The Associated Press.
Cao’s pause announcement followed the Trump-Xi summit during which Chinese officials made clear that the Taiwan question is China’s biggest issue in diplomatic relations with the United States.
The USS Chung-Hoon observed a Chinese navy ship sharply crossing its path in the Taiwan Strait on June 3, 2023, forcing the American destroyer to slow to avoid a collision during a freedom of navigation transit alongside Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal. (Andre T. Richard/U.S. Navy)
“President Xi stressed to President Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement after the Trump-Xi bilateral meeting.
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“If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy,” Ning concluded.
Fox News Digital contacted the White House, a representative for the Taiwanese government and the Chinese Foreign Ministry for additional comment.