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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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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.
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.
“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.
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