During an Oval Office meeting with President Trump in Washington on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping conveyed China’s position on Taiwan and told the US president to approach the issue “carefully,” The South China Morning Post reported, citing the Chinese broadcaster CCTV.
The report said that Xi, who is in Washington as part of an official state visit, also told Trump to adopt the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence.
Trump and Xi were expected to discuss US arms sales to Taiwan, and ahead of the summit, a spokesman for the Chinese Defense Ministry said the US must exercise “extreme caution” over the issue. “It should be emphasized that the Taiwan question is the most important in China-US relations and maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is the greatest common issue of the two countries,” said spokesman Jiang Bin.
The Trump administration approved a massive $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan back in December 2025, which China responded to by launching major drills around Taiwan simulating a blockade. The US quickly drew up a $14 billion arms sale for Taiwan, but Trump has yet to approve it. The US president has framed the potential sale as a “bargaining chip” with China, while other administration officials have suggested the delay relates to demand for certain military equipment and the state of US military stockpiles.
“People think … we view arm sales through the limited vacuum of the one particular place. A lot of this also involves balancing our industrial capacity and our military industrial base,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “This is not about Taiwan in specific, but when we sell something, that means we don’t have it anymore. We can get it in the future, but we don’t have it now.”
Ahead of Xi’s trip to the US, Reuters reported that Xi is expected to ask Trump to halt arms sales to Taiwan altogether and will point to the 1982 US-China Joint Communiqué, under which the US said that it “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.”
In a private memo explaining his interpretation of the commitment, President Reagan said at the time that the “reduction of such arms sales depends upon peace in the Taiwan Straits and the continuity of China’s declared ‘fundamental policy’ of seeking a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue.” China’s official position is that it seeks “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan under the “one country, two systems” framework.
