Chinese President Xi Jinping Launches Major Offensive On Taiwan Before May Summit With Trump

After getting political and diplomatic advantage from the latest US-Iran ceasefire, China has started its preparation for hosting the U.S. President Donald Trump in its crucial summit in Beijing on May 14 and 15 this year. Earlier the summit was scheduled for March 31 and April 1 but Trump postponed that after the beginning of Iran-US war and rescheduled in May. Now, since the war is over for the time being, both China and the US are making their own preparations for the coming summit.

Taiwan’s future is a major issue straining the relations between China and the USA for decades. In the last meeting at Busan, both leaders tried to narrow down the differences but President Xi Jinping stood by the Chinese claim that Taiwan is a part of China and Beijing would like the issue to be settled once for all. In the last five months since Busan talks, Trump made some efforts to persuade Japan and the present Taiwan government to dilute their anti-China rants in public, Japan Prime Minister Takaichi was even scolded by the US President for resorting to public outbursts against Beijing on Taiwan.

In such a developing scenario, President Xi Jinping had a rare meeting with the Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun, chairperson of the Kuomintang Party (KMT) in Beijing on Friday, April 10. This was first such contact in a decade and this took place a month before the scheduled summit with the U.S. President where Taiwan issue is expected to figure in a prominent manner. Xi said in this meeting that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and want peace.

Cheng reciprocated by saying that Taiwan should “no longer be a flashpoint for potential conflict” and should instead become “a symbol of peace jointly safeguarded by Chinese people on both sides of the strait.”This view of the Taiwan opposition leader is at complete variance with the position of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan which has stuck to its position as a separate nation and has sought US military assistance to meet China’s threat to its national security.

The comments of the KMT chairperson led to immediate outbursts from the ruling DPP calling Cheng an agent of Beijing, but the very presence of the main opposition party leader in Beijing and calling for peace and Taiwan not to be used as a pawn, has been a booster for President Xi before his talks with President Trump. Cheng has been advocating for a friendly approach to Beijing contradicting the stand of the present President Lao Ching-te who was elected in 2024 national elections.

Significantly, there is a debate in the Taiwan Parliament now over the ruling party’s proposal for US $ 40 billion defence budget much of which is proposed to be spent by buying US arms. Cheng has opposed this proposal. The debate is still on. China has told Trump that any further sales of arms by the US, will be considered a threat to China’s national security. Cheng’s position on this issue as the opposition leader, has strengthened China’s position on the arms sale issue. It is to be seen how Trump deals with this arms sale to Taiwan issue.

It is significant that even in the course of the U.S.-Iran war, China and the US continued their back channel talks on some crucial trade issues including the supply of rare earth minerals by China to the US with the objective to ensure that an agreement is arrived at before the summit so that the two leaders do not have to spend time on this complex issue.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Reuters early this week that the world’s two largest economies have settled into a stable situation in which the United States is able to access Chinese rare earths and maintain substantial tariffs on Chinese goods.

Greer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed issues involving rare earths in Paris in March, including minerals that go through third countries before they make it to the United States. All three are making efforts to arrive at a draft agreement on the supply of rare earth minerals much before May 14.

“It would be nice not to have it come up at the leaders’ meeting,” Greer said of the rare earths issue. “It’d be nice if we could resolve it at the ministers’ level and the staff level, and hopefully we’re in a position to do that. But, of course, the president, as he has in the past, he will continue to advocate for U.S. access to rare earths.”

Greer said that the United States is working on plurilateral agreements to boost alternative supplies of critical minerals, but these need price floor mechanisms to protect ⁠production from potential future predatory price cuts by China.

The United States and China, Greer said, are working on forming a Board of Trade mechanism for Trump and Xi to consider, which would determine what the two countries could sustainably trade with each other without crossing national security ⁠red lines.

Greer also said that there have been discussions about forming a possible Board of Investment between the two countries, but it would discuss discrete issues related to investment, such as roadblocks to specific company investments in the United States or China, but not broad policy.

Trump has said that he would be open to the idea of ⁠Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD starting a plant in the United States, but U.S. lawmakers have voiced increasing concern that allowing such investments from state-supported Chinese automakers would create an existential threat to the market-driven economics of the American auto industry.

That way, senior officials of both USA and China are having discussions on arriving at understanding on key economic issues at the ministers level so that the two Presidents focus mostly on political issues that include the future of Taiwan and the security of South China Sea apart from a review of West Asian and the global situation. Xi will be talking with big advantage while Trump will try to extract concessions to the extent possible to claim that both are winners. (IPA Service)