Xi invites Trump to Beijing in ominous move over Taiwan

During Trump’s visit to China, Xi Jinping is hoping to push him on Washington’s commitment to its One China position on Taiwan.

Xi Jinping has invited Donald Trump to Beijing. Picture: AFP

In an unusual diplomatic move, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Monday, and the two men spoke about Taiwan and Ukraine as Washington, Kyiv and Moscow try to hammer out a plan to end the war.

After the call Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had accepted an invitation from Mr Xi to visit Beijing in April, and he would host Mr Xi for a state visit to Washington later next year.

China has provided crucial diplomatic and economic support for Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now that Mr Trump is pushing to make a decisive move to end the war, Beijing is seeking to play a more visible role.

“Xi Jinping emphasised that China supports all efforts committed to peace and hopes that all parties will continue to narrow their differences and reach a fair, lasting, and binding peace agreement as soon as possible to resolve the crisis at its root,” Chinese state media said in an account of the conversation.

“China is watching the Ukraine peace deal and feels the need to be more involved,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

The Chinese leader also highlighted the issue of Taiwan, a flashpoint between Beijing and Washington, as tensions across the Taiwan Strait have flared in recent weeks.

“Taiwan’s return to China is an important component of the post-war international order,” according to the Chinese state media account. In a pointed historical parallel, Mr Xi also asserted that since China and the US “fought side-by-side against fascism and militarism” during World War II, they should now work together to safeguard those achievements.

Mr Trump affirmed that the US “understands the importance of the Taiwan issue to China,” Xinhua said.

While the official Xinhua News Agency disclosed the call, it didn’t specify which leader took the initiative. However, people close to Beijing said it was Xi who made the outreach, transforming the high-level communication into a strategic, and rare, diplomatic overture from the Chinese side. A White House official confirmed that Trump and Mr Xi spoke.

Mr Xi’s decision to initiate the call is an uncommon show of proactive outreach from Beijing, signalling the high strategic value it places on stabilising the US relationship – and, specifically, ensuring Washington’s commitment to its One China position on Taiwan.

“It is highly unusual for Mr Xi to initiate a call, and it underscores the opportunity Mr Xi believes he has to shape President Trump’s views,” said Evan Medeiros, a former senior national-security official in the Obama administration and now a professor at Georgetown University. “Taiwan policy is almost certainly at the centre of Mr Xi’s thinking, pulling the US closer to China’s thinking about Taiwan’s future.”

The discussion of Taiwan in the phone call is also notable given its rare omission from the two leaders’ in-person meeting in South Korea last month. Xi was reluctant to discuss such a sensitive issue in a third country, according to people close to Beijing, and the leaders already had various pressing issues to discuss for 90 minutes.

Instead, Xi decided that he would raise the Taiwan issue directly with Trump in Beijing in April, the people said. The Chinese leader wants his American counterpart on his home turf for several days, the people said, so he can press Trump on the need to move beyond the U.S.’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity and formally state that the U.S. “opposes” Taiwan’s independence and supports “peaceful reunification.” Beijing hopes that such changes in U.S. policy would isolate Taiwan.

The only instance in recent decades when a Chinese leader initiated contact with an American president was on Sept. 11, 2001, when then-President Jiang Zemin sent a telegram of condolence to then-President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. The two spoke the next day—but even then, according to China’s official account, the U.S. president had requested the call.

While China said that Monday’s call focused on Taiwan, Trump brought up Ukraine, the people familiar with the matter said. Chinese state media said Xi emphasized that “China supports all efforts committed to peace.”

China has provided crucial diplomatic and economic support for Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now, as Trump pushes to end the war, Beijing is seeking to play a more visible and active role in a peace deal.

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, said, “China is watching the Ukraine peace deal and feels the need to be more involved.”

Dow Jones