Xi Hits Hard at American Support for Taiwan in Tough Talk With Trump in Beijing

Communist China’s President Xi Jinping is playing the Taiwan card in tense talks with President Trump at Beijing.Mr. Xi put Free China, Taiwan, at the top of the agenda in the opening of two days of negotiations when he “stressed that it is the most important issue in China U.S. relations,” as reported by China’s state news agency, Xinhua.His remarks carried the strong implication that China would be open to deals on trade, tariffs and other key issues if Washington cut down sharply on the $1.5 billion in annual sales of military equipment that Taiwan needs for defense. Taiwan has been building up militarily against persistent Chinese intimidation, including encirclement by fighter planes and naval vessels.Mr. Xi, hosting Mr. Trump in the Great Hall of the People, was not reported to have gone into details, but he had the chance to get specific as he and Mr. Trump talked behind closed doors for two hours. He’s expected to elaborate when he and Mr. Trump wrap up two days of talks Friday.As it was, there was no mistaking the menacing nature of Mr. Xi’s words, as reported by Xinhua. “If handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. “Otherwise,” he warned, “the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”The summit could still reap dividends in talks between the 16 tycoons, including Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Black Rock’s Larry Fink, accompanying Mr. Trump on the mission. They saw China’s Premier, Li Qiang, for a general discussion that could herald sales to China of the “three B’s,” Boeing aircraft, beef and beans, that is, soybeans, of tremendous importance to farmers at the core of Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement.Mr. Trump in his meetings with Mr. Xi was flanked by his secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, as well as the defense or war secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, each of whom were likely to play critical roles in deal-making.One central question was the extent to which their outlooks would influence the outcome of the talks.“China wants to be a regional hegemon,” said a former deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan, Mark Lambert, talking at a forum staged by the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.”The president is not as hawkish on China as many in his administration,” he said, referring specifically to the undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby. More broadly, he said “the fundamental question” is “we don’t have an Indo-Pacific strategy” – a problem that’s “causing distress in Seoul” as well as Taiwan.“The administration has been confusing about its policy toward Taiwan,” said a senior adviser on defense and security at CSIS, Mark Cancian. While Mr. Colby stresses “the importance of defending Taiwan and the western Pacific,” he said, ”possibly Trump is making a deal on arms sale to Taiwan in return for the Strait of Hormuz where the U.S. has gotten itself into a stalemate” with Iran.For a former Taiwan legislator, Jason Hsu, now at the Hudson Institute in Washington, the prospect of Mr. Trump “making concessions” on Taiwan was “very worrisome.” It would, he said, be “very challenging to give China more leverage.”Taiwan authorities put on their best face in response to Mr. Xi’s remarks. No problem, no worries, was the official reaction at Taipei.“Taiwan will continue to work with the US to protect peace and stability in the region by building strong deterrence,” said a the Taiwan foreign ministry spokesman, Hsiao Kuang. ”China’s opposition to US arms sales to Taiwan is unreasonable, groundless and an attempt to distort the truth.”The view from Taiwan was that Mr. Xi was repeating the kind of stuff he had said many times. Still, the tone of his remarks was cause for alarm.“Safeguarding cross-Strait peace and stability is the biggest common denominator between China and the United States,” Xinhua quoted Mr. Xi as emphasizing. Calls in Taiwan for declaring “independence” as a foreign country while maintaining peace across the strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, he said, were “as irreconcilable as fire and water.”

Xi Hits Hard at American Support for Taiwan in Tough Talk With Trump in Beijing

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