The initial top line emerging from the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing was that while the two leaders had talked trade, technology and the US war in Iran, the most potentially hazardous issue was Taiwan. The Chinese foreign ministry reported that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, told the US president, Donald Trump, that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations”.
Handled properly, China’s statement said, relationship between China and the US will remain stable. “If handled poorly”, Xi told the US president, “the two countries will collide or even clash, putting the entire US-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation.”
A White House statement didn’t mention Xi’s warning over Taiwan, instead focusing on the two leaders’ agreement that the Strait of Hormuz must be kept open and the importance of China buying US agricultural produce and curtailing the flow of fentanyl precursors into the US.
In other words, the two sides’ reports neatly reflected their respective priorities.
So, despite the warm words and bonhomie at the subsequent banquet at which the two leaders raised glasses to each other over lobster, beef ribs and Beijing roast duck, there is clearly the potential for a serious misunderstanding over Taiwan. Last week a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the US president urging him to sign off on a US$14 billion (£111 billion) package of arms to Taipei. If he proceed with this, it would seriously hamper any efforts the two leaders might make to stabilise relations between the two countries.
The problem, write international affairs specialists Nicholas Wheeler and Marcus Holmes, is that the two sides come at the issue from completely different directions. For the US, continuing to provide Taiwan with state-of-the-art US defence weaponry is about deterring Chinese aggression. For China, US arms sales to Taiwan are themselves an aggressive move.
The situation is fraught with possibilities for misunderstanding. But surely this is what summits are for, argue Wheeler and Holmes. They recall the crisis in 1983 sparked by a US military drill that the Soviet Union convinced themselves was a preparation for a real nuclear strike by the US. It was Ronald Reagan’s realisation that “maybe they are scared of us and think we are a threat” which led him to develop warm relations with the next Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, precipitating a new era in arms control.
Maybe this week’s summit could help the pair to – as Xi put it – “make 2026 a historic, landmark year that opens up a new chapter in China-US relations”.
Read more:
Trump-Xi summit: in a high-stakes meeting the two leaders can’t afford to misread each other
Where would this new era leave Taipei? Distinctly nervous, you’d have to think. As Trump prepared to leave for Beijing, he commented that he was planning to discuss US arms sales with Xi – which, as Andrew Gawthorpe notes – breaches one of the Six Assurances that has been part of America’s policy towards Taiwan since the 1980s.
Gawthorpe, an expert in US foreign policy at the University of Leiden, cautions that the Trump administration breaking one of these promises could embolden Xi to press Trump on the other five, which include a US commitment on Taiwanese sovereignty.
The fact is, Gawthorpe concludes, if US arms sales to Taiwan are on the table now, they a likely to stay there, which could prove perilous for Taiwan if the US wants any major concessions, say on China’s support for Iran.
Xi talked about his hope that the summit could work towards “a new paradigm of major-country relations”. The importance of this bilateral relationship was a theme the Chinese president returned to several times in the meeting, at one point referencing what he called the “Thucydides trap”, which refers to the stresses that occur when a rising power challenges an established one. (You may recall Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made reference to the revered Greek historian in his widely praised Davos speech in February.)
But where was Russia in all this? Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham, observes that any stabilising of relations between Washington and Beijing is likely to come at Moscow’s expense and will certainly be a blow to Vladimir Putin’s aspiration to restore his country to great power status.
So as not to be left out, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced as Xi and Trump toured the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (an honour that has yet to be afforded to Putin) that preparations are underway for the Russian president to visit China “very soon”.
EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik//Kremlin pool
That’s not to say that Putin’s “no-limits friendship” with Xi is at threat, writes Wolff. But he observes that “the Xi-Trump summit is a party to which Putin was not invited”, which “indicates that his efforts to make his presence felt have largely failed”.
Read more:
Why Putin will have been watching the Trump-Xi summit nervously
Damp squib for Putin
It hasn’t been a great week for the Russian president, all things considered. On May 9, what has traditionally been a red letter day for Vladmir Putin – Russia’s Victory Day celebration – proved to be something of a damp squib.
Ukraine’s recent successes in long-range drone attacks, one of which successfully struck a luxury high-rise apartment block less than ten miles from Red Square, prompted Putin to scale back the parade. What is usually a showcase of Russia’s military might, parading tanks, ballistic missile launchers and an array of other state-of-the-art weaponry in front of invited world leaders, was reduced to a march past with a couple of Putin allies and assorted second world war veterans.
Russia-watcher Jennifer Mathers of Aberystwyth University has examined the Victory Day parades since the Ukraine war begin in 2022 and believes they reflect Russian national morale. This year’s, she says, saw Russia looks “fearful, diminished and isolated”.
Caspian Sea
With all the attention – understandably – on the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, little has been written about the Caspian Sea. But the world’s largest landlocked body of water has played an important role in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.
During the Ukraine war, Iran used it to supply Russia with Shahed drones, now Russia is returning the compliment. The two countries have also found it useful in avoiding western sanctions on trade in all manner of other goods.
Here’s a piece from maritime security expert Basil Germond, of Lancaster University on just how significant the Caspian Sea has become.
Read more:
Why the Caspian Sea has become so important in both the Ukraine and Iran wars
