A China-US war? Faced with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping evokes a risk of “conflict” if the question of Taiwan “is poorly handled”

The discussion of areas of contention has begun. Xi Jinping warned Donald Trump this Thursday, May 24, of the risk of “conflict” between China and the United States if the Taiwan question is poorly managed. “The Taiwan issue is the most important in Sino-American relations,” said the Chinese president.

“If it is handled well, relations between the two countries (China and the United States) can remain generally stable. If it is mishandled, the two countries will clash or even enter into conflict,” Xi Jinping said, using a Mandarin word that does not necessarily mean military conflict.

“Taiwanese independence is incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait”, which separates the island from mainland China, the leader stressed to Donald Trump.

A “legendary future”

President Donald Trump, however, promised his counterpart Xi Jinping a “fabulous future” between the United States and China, making conciliatory remarks far from the multiple tensions between the two powers at the opening of a summit with global issues.

Despite the pompous welcome reserved for Donald Trump for this state visit, his host remained in a usual and more sober register, invoking a historian of Greek antiquity, Thucydides, to repeat that China and the United States must be ” partners, not rivals.”

At the same time, the government of Taiwan affirmed this Thursday that the United States had expressed its “clear and firm support” to the island during these discussions.

“The US side has repeatedly reaffirmed its clear and firm support for Taiwan,” Taiwanese government spokesperson Michelle Lee told reporters. In addition, Taipei claims to consider Beijing as “the only risk” for regional peace.

Military maneuvers around the island

China considers Taiwan as one of its provinces, which it has not yet succeeded in “unifying” with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. It pleads for a peaceful takeover but does not rule out the use of force.

The United States maintains diplomatic relations with Beijing but not with Taipei. However, they are the island’s main arms supplier, which annoys the Chinese authorities, who see it as an attack on national sovereignty.

China regularly asks the United States not to support militarily and diplomatically the current Taiwanese authorities, from a party with a traditionally independentist credo.

Beijing has intensified its military maneuvers around Taiwan since 2016 and the arrival as president of the island of Tsai Ing-wen, then of his successor Lai Ching-te in 2024, both categorically opposed to Chinese demands.

Visit with great fanfare

Beyond the exceptional nature of the visit, the first by an American president since the one that Donald Trump himself made in 2017, the summit is widely presented as an opportunity for the two parties to maintain a certain stability between the two leading powers global economies and not to aggravate existing crises.

Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for Donald Trump upon his arrival at the monumental People’s Palace, a center of power adjoining the immense Tian’anmen Square in the heart of the capital decorated with Chinese and American colors.

After reviewing a military guard to the sound of a salvo of cannons, then greeting a crowd of children carrying flowers and waving the flags of the two countries while chanting “welcome, welcome, warm welcome!”, Xi and Trump quickly got into the tough stuff.

“The two heads of state exchanged views on major international and regional issues, including the situation in the Middle East, the crisis in Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula,” Chinese Foreign Affairs said. On the American side, the White House described the meeting between the two men as “good”.

According to this source, the two leaders agree on the fact that the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic sea route blocked due to the war between the United States and Iran, “must remain open.”