Obama warns Trump not to damage China ties
December 17, 2016, 7:19 pm

Obama and Xi, sometimes sparring partners, agreed to work together to end cyber crimes and espionage during a press conference at the White House last year [Xinhua]

During a White House press conference, Obama warned Trump not to easily fall into a schism of worsening relations between America and China.

In recent weeks, the President-elect has made numerous references to China as an adversary particularly when it came to the issue of Taiwan.

Obama believes it’s completely the wrong course of action and threatens to undermine ties between Washington and Beijing which he says are significant and required for global security and stability.

“The idea of ‘One China’ is at the heart of their conception as a nation and so if you are going to upend this understanding, you have to have thought through what are the consequences,” Obama said of Taiwan’s relevance to China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has reacted a number of times to Trump statements on Taiwan and other issues.

“We urge the new US leader and the government to fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue, continue to stick to the one-China policy and the three Joint Communiques between China and the United States, and discreetly deal with Taiwan-related issues so as to prevent China-US relations from being severely disturbed and damaged,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said.

Obama stressed that Taiwan was a central issue at the heart of China’s foreign and domestic policies.

“The Chinese will not treat that the way they will treat some other issues. They won’t even treat it the way they treat issues around the South China Sea, where we have had a lot of tensions,” he said on Friday.

“This goes to the core of how they see themselves and their reaction on this issue could end up being very significant.”

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies