Results of the Trump-Xi summit
President Trump left China on Friday with almost nothing concrete to show for his two-day summit with President Xi Jinping, says a New York Times analysis. The summit ended with no major public progress on the Middle East, trade, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence or any of the other issues that are sources of friction between the world’s two superpowers.
Instead, Trump seemed intent on a different kind of diplomacy, forging a personal bond with Xi, who appeared more focused on advancing his own nation’s strategic agenda.
Orville Schell, vice president of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, said the summit was “quite insubstantial and aspirational.”
Few of even the limited accomplishments that Trump spoke about were confirmed by China, while Xi set the tone with an assertive posture over Taiwan, says the Times.
Trump said he hadn’t decided whether to proceed with arms sales to Taiwan, an island democracy that China claims as its own breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary.
China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949, when the Communist Party rose to power in Beijing after a civil war. Defeated Nationalist Party forces fled to Taiwan, which later transitioned from martial law to a multiparty democracy, The Associated Press explains.
The United States, like all countries that have formal ties with China, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country. But it’s been Taiwan’s strongest supporter and weapons supplier. The United States is bound by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and sees all threats to the island as a matter of grave concern.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te stressed on Sunday that arms purchases from the United States are “the most important deterrent” of regional conflict and instability, after Trump called into question continued U.S. support.
Trump approved in December a record-breaking $11 billion arms package to Taiwan including missiles, drones, artillery systems and military software. In an interview aired Friday on Fox News, as Trump ended his China visit, he said he has yet to greenlight a new $14 billion arms package to Taiwan and that it “depends on China.”
“It’s a very good negotiating chip for us frankly,” Trump said.
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