Xi Jinping calls Donald Trump as relationship moves to new territory
Xi Jinping has made a rare call to Donald Trump in an ominous sign China feels more capable of staring down the US President and is set to pressure him on Taiwan.
Xi Jinping has made a rare call to Donald Trump in an ominous sign the US/Beijing relationship is heading towards new territory where China feels more confident, more equal to Washington and more capable of staring down the US President over trade war threats - and, more worryingly, Taiwan.
The Chinese leader made the unusual step of initiating contact with Trump amid a tentative trade truce, with the two leaders speaking on the evening of November 24 about a range of topics. Read-outs from both sides suggest the conversation covered trade, US soybeans, fentanyl and the Ukraine war as Washington ploughs ahead with a contentious new peace plan.
But in a seminal moment for Taipei, the Chinese leader also directly raised Beijing’s expectations over Taiwan – the key issue which was left out of the leaders’ October 30 meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea.
Taiwan was always going to be discussed with Trump at a future point, but Mr Xi has chosen to do so at a critical juncture – as China engages in a new round of economic coercion against Tokyo at a point of high regional tension.
Mr Xi is retaliating to comments made by Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who told the Diet on November 7 that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would constitute an existential threat – the trigger for collective self defence measures in Japan’s constitution.
According to the Chinese read-out, Mr Xi told Mr Trump that Taiwan’s return to China was an integral part of the post-war international order. He said China and the US had “fought shoulder to shoulder against fascism and militarism” and that “given what is going on, it is even more important for us to jointly safeguard the victory of WWII.”
Henrietta Levin, the director for China at the White House National Security Council during the Biden administration, noted that Mr Trump had given no public indication that he had discussed Beijing’s campaign of coercion against Japan.
The senior fellow in China studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said this was a notable omission.
She argued China was “overreacting as a matter of choice” to Takaichi’s comments to “test Washington and to test whether the US will stand with one of its most important allies on one of the most important security issues of the Western Pacific – or will the US prioritise stability in the US China relationship?”
This was also why Beijing was more seriously linking the Taiwan question to the victory over Japan in World War Two – to try and “emphasise that Japan is on the wrong side of the historical narrative that Beijing is trying to tell.”
“So, it is quite surprising that the US President would speak to his Chinese counterpart at a time when China is acting so aggressively against a treaty ally without that being a significant element of the call,” Ms Levin said. “That kind of omission could cause Beijing to question American resolve more broadly in the Western Pacific. So that stands out to me.”
There are growing concerns among strategic thinkers in Washington that Mr Trump’s non-ideological view of the world and his consistent refusal to discuss military deterrence of China are stoking hopes in Beijing that vital concessions can be extracted from the US President.
The big opportunity for China will arrive next year, with Mr Trump confirming his acceptance of an invitation to visit Beijing in April to be followed later in the year by a reciprocal visit to Washington by Mr Xi.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mr Xi was reluctant to discuss Taiwan in South Korea, but decided that he would raise the issue directly with Mr Trump on the Chinese leader’s home turf, where it would be easier to press him to formally oppose Taiwan independence.
Beijing will enter this period of high-level diplomacy believing it prevailed against Washington in the trade war. Ms Levin said the summit in South Korea had focused on the US management of Chinese retaliation at the expense of “any discussion about the underlying structural imbalances that the trade war was ostensibly intended to address.”
“The outcome of the summit in Korea really achieved stability on China’s terms. Now they are moving ahead in the relationship towards these additional meetings with a tremendous confidence in their own negotiation position … They will continue to try and move the goalposts further,” she said.
“Beijing will feel that additional US concessions are within reach and they will certainly continue to push for them.”
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