(Reuters)
BEIJING, May 14 – China’s Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump that trade talks were making progress at the start of a two-day summit on Thursday, but cautioned that disagreement over Taiwan could send relations down a dangerous path and even lead to conflict.
Xi’s remarks on Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing, came in a closed-door meeting of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies that ran more than two hours, China’s foreign ministry said.
They represented a stark – if not unprecedented – warning during a pomp-filled occasion that was otherwise friendly and relaxed, although the U.S. summary of the talks made no mention of Taiwan.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is with Trump in China, confirmed to NBC News that the issue of Taiwan was discussed, saying the Chinese “always raise it on their side, we always make clear our position and we move on to the other topics.”
The U.S. summary of the talks focused on the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the key waterway of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively closed due to the Iran war, and Xi’s apparent interest in buying American oil to reduce China’s dependence on Middle East supplies.
With Trump’s approval ratings dented by a war with Iran that shows no signs of abating, the first visit by a U.S. president to China in nearly a decade has taken on added significance as he searches for economic wins.
“There are those who say this may be the biggest summit ever,” Trump told Xi in brief opening remarks, after a ceremony that featured an honour guard and throngs of children waving flowers and flags at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Xi told Trump that preparatory negotiations between U.S. and Chinese economic and trade teams in South Korea on Wednesday had reached “balanced and positive outcomes”, China’s foreign ministry said in a summary.
The talks aimed to maintain a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October, where Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.
