The State Department has approved $2.2 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan, the largest military sale since Trump took office.
The US has historically backed Taipei, but its latest show of support could threaten the tentative truce between the two superpowers.
China has always claimed control of Taiwan but has never ruled it, while the US is committed to help Taiwan defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act.
The US State Department has approved a $2.2 billion arms sale to Taiwan, a deal that could threaten a tentative truce struck between the US and China in the countries' trade war.
The Trump administration's largest arms sale so far underscores its commitment to Taiwan, which was formalized in 1971 under the Taiwan Relations Act. The deal comes as tensions between China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and the US remain high. The two superpowers recently struck a tentative truce to hold off on further escalation in their ongoing trade war and resume negotiations.
"It's a gross interference in China's internal affairs and harms China's sovereignty and security interests," said Geng Shuan, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.
"China urges the US to ... immediately cancel the planned arms sale and stop military relations with Taipei to avoid damaging Sino-US relations and harming peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Geng added, Al Jazeera said.
Beijing has become increasingly annoyed with the Trump administration over its Taipei relations. On Thursday, Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen is due to land in New York for a two-day visit. The US has previously granted Taiwan stop-overs but they have generally been much shorter than two days, indicating a change in Washington's approach to Taipei.
Likewise, US administrations have denied or delayed sales of arms to Taiwan. But Trump has very much chosen a different approach, with a more flexible view of Taiwan's needs.
All guns blazing
The deal includes the sale of 108 Abrams tanks, 250 Stinger missiles, and related equipment, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency — which handles foreign arms sales — said on Monday.
However, Taiwan may have misspent its money. Tanks aren't suitable for Taiwanese roads or the mudflats where a Chinese invasion would likely take place, the FT reported, citing analysts.
Critics of the purchase argued electronic warfare should be the priority, in order to upset the early stages of a Chinese attack.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive, speaks during a news conference on July 2, 2019, in Hong Kong. | Anthony Kwan/Getty Images
This story is being published as part of a content partnership with the South China Morning Post. It originally appeared on scmp.com on July 9, 2019.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor gave her strongest pledge yet on Tuesday morning when she declared the highly unpopular extradition bill that sparked several mass protests was “dead”, changing from an earlier script that it “will die” in 2020.
Story Continued Below
While protesters had demanded a full withdrawal, Lam stressed her stance on Tuesday had already been definitive.
Speaking before the weekly meeting with her advisers in the Executive Council, Lam described the government’s work in amending the law as a “complete failure."
The chief executive acknowledged there were lingering doubts that the government could restart the amendment process within the Legislative Council’s current term, which ends in 2020.
“There is no such plan, the bill is dead,” Lam said.
She admitted her stance on Tuesday did not differ much from when she announced last month that the legislative process would be suspended, adding: “In some sense, even if [the bill] is withdrawn today, it can be retabled at Legco within three months.”
The bill would have allowed Hong Kong to transfer suspects to jurisdictions it lacks extradition agreements with, including mainland China. Critics feared it would remove the legal firewall between the city and the mainland, exposing suspects to opaque trials across the border.
Lam, however, stood firm on not setting up a top-level probe into clashes between police and protesters.
She said the Independent Police Complaints Council would launch an investigation, and that all parties involved in the demonstrations, including protesters, police, media and onlookers, could provide information.
There have been widespread calls for a judge-led commission of inquiry (COI) to be set up, with former chief justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang the latest to add his voice, in a commentary asking for such a commission that was published in the Post on Tuesday.
"While I respect [Li’s] views … I’m afraid on this particular issue of an independent COI, the view has been taken for the IPCC to perform this role,” Lam said.
Lam also touched on the 2014 Occupy movement, during which protesters had called for the implementation of genuine universal suffrage.“Five years ago, we finished Occupy Central, we moved on, without addressing those fundamental problems,” Lam said. “But this time I don’t think we can continue to ignore those fundamental and deep-seated problems.”
Asked if she would restart discussions on political reform, Lam said she was “not targeting a particular issue."
She added: “It could be economic problems, it could be livelihood issues, it could be political divisions in society.”
The chief executive also said she was “willing to engage in an open dialogue with students without any preconditions."
Student leaders from eight universities said they would only talk to Lam if she agreed to their two conditions on Friday: meet them in a town hall-style open meeting and promise to exonerate protesters.
Lam reiterated that the government did not call a protest on June 12, during which there were violent clashes between police and protesters, a “riot."
She also said it would be against the rule of law to grant an amnesty to arrested protesters “at this stage," without investigations and prosecutions.
The weekly Exco meeting was the first at the Chief Executive’s Office since June 11. A meeting last week was held at Government House, while two others were canceled due to the recent protests.
Among protesters’ demands are that all references to clashes on June 12 as a riot be retracted.
“In the coming three years, there must be officials stepping down to fulfill the accountability system,” Tien told a radio show, referring to the time left for the current administration.
Tien, however, refused to say who he had in mind.
Speaking on the same program, Liberal Party lawmaker Felix Chung Kwok-pan said it was not possible for Lam to step down at the moment. He also suggested that if ministers were to quit, it would be difficult to find others to replace them.
“Given now how hot the kitchen is, which is almost burning, who would be willing to join and work for the government?” Chung said.
Instead, he suggested changes in Exco.
“Exco is one of the most important advisory bodies for the chief executive … Now there are problems, should there be changes in Exco? At least there is action to show the government is not only saying it will change or listen,” he said.
Tien, a lawmaker of the Roundtable group, also suggested that Exco members should not have background links to political parties and should remain politically neutral.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday the effort to amend an extradition bill was dead, but it wasn't clear if the legislation was being withdrawn as protesters have demanded.
Vincent Yu/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Vincent Yu/AP
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday the extradition bill that prompted weeks of street demonstrations is "dead," admitting that the government's handling of it was a "total failure."
The measure would have allowed people in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China to face trials in courts controlled by the Communist Party, sparking fears of politically-motivated prosecutions targeting outspoken critics of China.
The backlash to the bill has prompted the most serious challenge to the Beijing-controlled government of Hong Kong since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.
In mid-June Lam responded to huge protests by suspending the bill, but that move failed to mollify critics, who continued to demonstrate against the bill and call for Lam's resignation.
And in the face of Lam's declaration, Hong Kong protesters leaders are not satisfied, saying the bill should be formally withdrawn.
Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong wrote on Twitter that Lam telling the country the bill is dead is a "ridiculous lie," since she did not invoke federal powers necessarily to really kill the bill. Plus, Wong said the Hong Kong leader has not committed to not re-introducing the bill at a later date, which protesters are demanding.
Activists like Wong are also urging Lam for an independent investigation into some of the forceful tactics Hong Kong police used against demonstrators, which by some estimates reached around 2 million people at the height of the protests. Riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse crowds blocking roads.
Angry demonstrators hurled bricks and bottles in the clashes with police that Lam at one point called "organized riots."
But on Tuesday, Lam said those who object to the extradition bill have nothing to fear.
She said she realizes there are "lingering doubts about the government's sincerity or worries about whether it would re-start the process in the legislative council," yet, she emphasized: "There is no such plan. The bill is dead."
Under Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" formula of government, the territory retains freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China. Demonstrators fearing an erosion of those freedoms and are talking of extending their protests.
Police are still searching for suspects who disrupted the 22nd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China, storming he Legislative Council and vandalizing the property.
Hong Kong demonstrator Katherine, 26, who only agreed to talk if her last name was not revealed, told NPR's Julie McCarthy, that the destruction of the property paled in comparison to what she claims the government is trying to destroy: the rights of Hong Kong people.
China, she said, is not the enemy.
"But they are someone hindering our development, hindering our evolution to a more civilized society," she said.
HONG KONG — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday said a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China is effectively “dead” and conceded that her government’s work on the issue was a “complete failure,” responding to sustained public anger over a proposal that sparked massive protests in the city over recent weeks.
Still, she declined to formally withdraw the bill from the legislative agenda or meet protesters’ other demands, such as an independent inquiry into police use of force in quelling demonstrations.
The Hong Kong government has “put a stop to” the legislative process around the bill, she said, dismissing fears that the legislature will restart the process at a later date.
“I reiterate here, there is no such plan,” she said. “The bill is dead.”
The battle over the extradition bill has posed a serious test of Lam’s leadership — and a challenge for Beijing — as Hong Kongers have publicly resisted what many here perceived as an attack on the territory’s cherished freedoms and autonomy. Protesters have occupied major roads and confronted riot police in a series of clashes.
The crisis has exposed deep concerns about the Hong Kong government’s legitimacy and worries over Beijing’s increasing control of the financial hub.
Lam said her decision to suspend rather than withdraw the bill and her refusal to meet other demands have “nothing to do with my own pride or arrogance.” Instead, they are “practical” responses that will allow Hong Kong to move ahead, she said.
She appealed for Hong Kongers to trust her administration.
“Give us the time and room for us to take Hong Kong out of the current impasse,” Lam said.
Her comments Tuesday were the first since she held a 4 a.m. news conference after protesters occupied Hong Kong’s legislature on the anniversary of the former British colony’s 1997 handover to China.
The swelling movement in Hong Kong has grown to encompass a widespread sentiment that the territory’s government does not work for its people but exists to advance an agenda set by Beijing. Lam has said that her government will work to seek out voices of the young, who have driven the most radical protest tactics in recent weeks, and reiterated her promise for a more open style of governance.
Other pro-Beijing voices have acknowledged that an end to Hong Kong’s recurring political crises — another erupted in 2014 over calls for universal suffrage — would not be possible without an overhaul of the political system. The city’s leader is selected by a 1,200-person committee out of a pool of candidates approved by Beijing, and only half of its 70-seat legislature is directly elected.
“The government needs a radical shake-up, both in its mind-set, and its policies and systems, or Hong Kong’s days as a vibrant, and above all, safe, city of Asia will be numbered,” wrote Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing lawmaker and member of Hong Kong’s cabinet, in an opinion piece for the South China Morning Post newspaper.
Lam detailed no such changes Tuesday, but she acknowledged that both the extradition-bill protests and the 2014 pro-democracy demonstrations have exposed rifts in Hong Kong society.
“This time, I don’t think we could continue to ignore those fundamental and deep-seated problems,” she said.
Like her predecessors, Lam has become emblematic of the problem for many who have taken to the streets in Hong Kong, angered by her responses to the discord. At one point, she compared governing to parenting and said she could not give in to her son’s demands every time. Those comments prompted chants during rallies of “Carrie Lam is not my mother!”
The chief executive has declined to step down, but on Tuesday she reiterated an earlier public apology.
“I have tendered my most sincere apology for the disturbances and tensions and confrontations caused by our work,” she said, later adding that she has the “passion and the sense of duty to serve the Hong Kong people.”
Bonnie Leung, a leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, a group that planned some of the protests, said Lam’s comments were not new and did not meet demands.
“The same thing being said over and over again doesn’t make it any better or mean anything more,” she said.
In Hong Kong, withdrawing a bill that has already been planned for the legislative agenda involves a separate legal process.
“However, she only said the bill is ‘dead.’ We cannot find the word ‘dead’ in any of the laws in Hong Kong, or in any legal proceedings in the Legislative Council,” Leung added, referring to the city’s lawmaking body.
Joshua Wong, a prominent young activist, added in a tweet that Lam’s declaration was a “ridiculous lie.”
“The crux does not lie in the word play, whether ‘suspend’ or ‘withdraw,’ I think the key is whether she would promise not to initiate the bill again during her term,” he wrote. “She has to make it clear.”
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has said her administration's bill to allow people to be sent to the Chinese mainland for trial was "dead" following a series of mass protests, but she stopped short of completely withdrawing the so-called extradition bill as demonstrators have demanded.
"There are still lingering doubts about the government's sincerity or worries (about) whether the government will restart the process with the legislative council," she told journalists on Tuesday, referring to Hong Kong's parliament.
"So I reiterate here, there is no such plan. The bill is dead."
Hong Kong protesters storm legislature, smash doors and walls
Beijing-backed Lam admitted that the government's work on the issue had been a "total failure".
The bill, which would have allowed people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China for trial, has sparked huge and at times violent street protests and plunged the former British colony into its biggest political crisis in decades.
The protesters appeared unimpressed with Lam's latest attempt to reduce the political temperature in the semi-autonomous territory.
Local activist Ventus Lau Wing-Hong said he could see no reason for the demonstrations to stop.
Lau was disqualified from running in elections last year after showing support for Hong Kong's independence on Facebook.
"The response just shows that she is still very stubborn," Lau said. "To avoid using the word 'withdraw' shows that she still wants to play the word game instead of directly answering yes to our demand. I can't see any reasons why people will stop their protests."
Protesters have called for Carrie Lam's resignation over the extradition bill [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]
Concessions dismissed
Joshua Wong, who led the Umbrella Protests that brought the city to a standstill in 2014, dismissed Lam's comments on the bill's status as a "ridiculous lie", noting that unless the bill was withdrawn it would remain in the government's legislative programme until July next year.
Over the past few weeks, opposition to the bill has brought millions of people onto the streets in largely peaceful protests marred by sporadic outbreaks of violence and police use of tear-gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray.
Scores have been arrested and protesters have demanded an independent investigation into police tactics.
Lam promised on Tuesday that allegations of brutality would be investigated, but not by an independent body.
"Carrie Lam has demonstrated a more modest and more humble attitude as she intends to win over the less committed and the 'middle-of-the-roaders," Joseph Cheng, a professor at City University of Hong Kong told Al Jazeera.
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong released from jail
"But I do believe the vast majority of Hong Kong people now want better guarantees that the government is going to be accountable to them, will stand up for their interests and avoid and prevent too much interference from Beijing. This is a tall order but she has to restore that confidence in her government."
Lam first said she would suspend the bill in mid-June after confrontations on the streets between police and protesters, but the move failed to mollify critics who took to the streets the very next day calling for her resignation.
On July 1, which marks the day when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, a group of protesters forced their way into the legislative council, ransacking the building and covering the walls with graffiti.
Al Jazeera's Rob McBride said for many of those at the demonstrations, opposition to the extradition bill had been a catalyst to air long-held frustrations on the governance of the territory.
Hong Kong is ruled under a "one country, two systems" formula that is supposed to ensure an independent judiciary, as well as civil rights and freedoms for its people.
"The genie is out of the bottle," McBride said from Hong Kong. "People aren't just talking about the extradition bill. They are talking about Hong Kong's wider relationship with China; the old subject of universal suffrage; why can't we vote for a government of our choice and a leader of our choice; why the leader is effectively chosen by Beijing."
Demonstrators are now focusing their attention on mainland visitors to the territory, marching on Sunday to a high-speed railway station, which is the entry and exit point to Hong Kong for many mainland Chinese.
Further protests are planned in coming weeks.
With additional reporting by Casey Quackenbush in Hong Kong
In a string of tweets about the UK, he said the US "will no longer deal with him", as well as making critical comments about Prime Minister Theresa May and her approach to Brexit.
Mr Trump's comments come after No 10 said the prime minister had "full faith" in the UK ambassador in Washington following the leak.
Emails from the UK's ambassador, leaked to the Mail on Sunday, said Mr Trump's White House was "uniquely dysfunctional" and "divided".
The prime minister's spokesman said it was "the job of ambassadors to provide honest and unvarnished opinions" but Mrs May "does not agree with the assessment".
He added: "The leak is absolutely unacceptable and, as you would expect, contact has been made with the Trump administration setting out our view that we believe that it is unacceptable."
Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan told the House of Commons police could be involved if evidence of wrongdoing over the breach of confidentiality was found.
"The most important focus is to establish who is responsible for this despicable leak," he said.
Earlier, Trade Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC the leak was "unprofessional, unethical and unpatriotic", adding that whoever released the emails had "maliciously" undermined the defence and security relationship with the US.
"I hope if we can identify the individual, either the full force of internal discipline - or if necessary the law - will be brought to bear because this sort of behaviour has no place in public life," he said.
But Labour's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Sir Kim had been "betrayed" and "hung out to dry even though his only crime was to tell the truth".
She added: "He told the truth about Donald Trump and that was because it was his job."
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Analysis: Damage is 'considerable'
By James Robbins, BBC diplomatic correspondent
Just imagine if every heavily encrypted report to Whitehall from all UK ambassadors overseas was instantly available on your mobile.
The candour would cease immediately and they'd become ultra-bland and useless as a tool in policy-making.
So, damage in this case is considerable. There will be a large number of potential suspects.
Diplomatic telegrams are seen by scores, often hundreds of people - ministers and officials - across several departments. That is to ensure grown-up and private conversations can be had based on large amounts of source material.
Of course, there is damage to relations between the UK and the Trump White House too.
Mr Trump likes to dish out insults and criticism (remember his frequent belittling of Theresa May over Brexit, and his all out verbal attacks on the mayor of London) but he is pretty thin-skinned when the verbal arrows are aimed at him.
The one person who is not under suspicion in London is Sir Kim himself. After all, as his current political master, Mr Hunt, has made clear, he was just doing his job.
As the Foreign Office launched an investigation into the source of the leak to the Mail on Sunday, Mr Trump told reporters in New Jersey: "We're not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well.
"So I can understand it and I can say things about him but I won't bother."
In the emails, the UK ambassador to Washington said: "We don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction-riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept."
Sir Kim questioned whether this White House "will ever look competent" but also warned the US president should not be written off.
Frank opinions
Dating from 2017 to the present day, the leaked emails said rumours of "infighting and chaos" in the White House were mostly true and policy on sensitive issues such as Iran was "incoherent, chaotic".
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said if Boris Johnson becomes prime minister and the UK leaves the EU by 31 October, "people like" Sir Kim would "not be around".
Asked about speculation that he might take on the diplomatic role, Mr Farage said: "I don't think I'm the right man for the job", adding that he was "not a diplomat".
However, he said he "could be very useful" when dealing with the US administration.
Who is Sir Kim Darroch?
Sir Kim is the British ambassador to the US, which means he represents the Queen and UK government interests in the US.
Born in South Stanley, County Durham in 1954, he attended Durham University where he read zoology.
During a 42-year diplomatic career, he has specialised in national security issues and European Union policy.
In 2007, Sir Kim served in Brussels as UK permanent representative to the EU.
He was the prime minister's national security adviser between 2012 and 2015, dealing with issues such as the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Russian annexation of Crimea, the nuclear threat from Iran and the collapse of government authority in Libya.
He became ambassador to the US in January 2016, several months before Donald Trump became president.
Richard Ellis/Getty Images
