Xi Jinping told Donald Trump that Taiwan is the most important issue between their two countries, and that getting it wrong would bring “clashes and even conflicts.” The warning came on Thursday, May 14, during Trump’s visit to Beijing.
Xi also said “Taiwan independence” and peace across the Taiwan Strait are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Chinese state media’s account of the talks carried the wording.
Taipei pushes back
Taiwan’s foreign ministry responded within hours. “China is currently the only risk to regional peace and stability,” it said. The ministry added that even as the two leaders met, the People’s Liberation Army kept sending military aircraft and ships to “harass and threaten” Taiwan.
Did Trump give anything?
Analysts read Xi’s stern language as a sign that Trump held his ground. William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at International Crisis Group, pointed out that any real concession would probably have shown up in Beijing’s official readout. “The lack of such mention and the relatively stern tone suggest Trump may not have budged on Taiwan in principle,” Yang said. Wen-Ti Sung of the Atlantic Council took the warning of potential conflict as evidence that Taiwan is still the Chinese government’s biggest red line.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to NBC, said the question of US weapons sales to Taiwan “did not feature prominently” in the talks, though Xi has raised it with Trump before. Rubio said Washington had set out its position on Taiwan using “strategic ambiguity,” because it does not want to see a conflict over the island. China wants to reunify Taiwan with the mainland and has not ruled out using force. Rubio’s own view: “We think it would be a terrible mistake to force that through force or anything of that nature. There would be repercussions for that, globally, not just in the United States.”
China has condemned a proposed US arms package for Taiwan worth around $14 billion. Congress approved the deal, but Trump has not formally moved ahead with it.
A summit with a crowded agenda
The two-day summit was the first US state visit to China since 2017, from Trump’s first term. Trade, the war on Iran, artificial intelligence and Taiwan were all on the table. Trump travelled with Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, plus a delegation of business leaders that included Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Forbes put the combined net worth of the billionaires and Trump’s entourage at $870 billion.
In public, the tone was warmer. Xi said the common interests of China and the United States outweigh their differences. “When we cooperate, both sides benefit. When we confront each other, both sides suffer,” he said. Trump called Xi “a great leader” and said the two men had worked out their problems quickly whenever they came up.
Zhao Hai, director of international political studies at the Institute of World Economics and Politics in Beijing, called it a critical moment. “Both sides now are working together to establish a stable relationship that will have a global ramification,” he said. Trump had been due to visit at the end of March or early April but pushed the trip back because of the war in Iran.
Sources
- China’s Xi warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to conflict
- Xi Warns Trump of Potential “Conflict” over Taiwan in Beijing Summit on Iran, Trade, Tech & More
Sources
- See the latest updates, context and perspectives about this story.
- China’s Xi warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to…
