Trump and Xi set for second day of talks after Taiwan warning

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BEIJING - US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet on May 15 to wrap up a two-day state visit that has featured pomp and business deals but also a stark warning from Mr Xi that mishandling the Taiwan issue could push US-China relations to "a very dangerous place”.

Mr Trump is on the first visit by a US president to China, America's main strategic and economic rival, since a 2017 visit during his first term, and has been hoping for tangible results that might improve his dented approval ratings ahead of crucial midterm elections.

The two leaders are scheduled to have tea and lunch before Mr Trump flies back to the US.

“Hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!” Mr Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform early on May 15.

The summit has been aimed at maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October, and Mr Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods, and Mr Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV on May 15 that it was undecided whether the truce will be extended after it expires later this year but added deals had been firmed up on Chinese purchases of farm goods, beef and Boeing aircraft.

Mr Greer confirmed progress was also made on establishing mechanisms to manage future bilateral trade, with both sides expected to identify US$30 billion (S$38 billion) of non-sensitive goods. The Taiwan issue should not push that off the rails, he added.

Mr Trump told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, its first purchase of US-made commercial jets in nearly a decade. That total was much lower than the 500 or more airplanes markets had expected and Boeing shares fell more than 4 per cent after the comments were aired.

Mr Trump has also been expected to urge China to convince Iran to make a deal with Washington to end a war unpopular with American voters.

But he has travelled to Beijing with a weakened hand after US courts limited his ability to levy tariffs at will and as price rises driven by the Iran war have made him politically vulnerable at home.

A brief US summary of the May 14 talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders' shared desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz waterway off Iran, through which a fifth of global supplies of oil and natural gas travel in normal times, and Mr Xi's apparent interest in buying American oil to reduce China's dependence on Middle East supplies.

“The Chinese are being very pragmatic. They don’t want to be on the wrong side of this. They want to see peace,” Mr Greer told Bloomberg. “So we have a lot of confidence that they will do what they can to limit any kind of material support for Iran.”

Stark warning

Mr Xi's remarks on Taiwan, the democratically governed island Beijing claims, represented a sharp, if not unprecedented, warning during a pomp-filled summit that otherwise appeared friendly and relaxed.

China's Foreign Ministry said they came in a closed-door meeting that ran more than two hours.

Taiwan, which lies just 80km off China's coast, has long been a flashpoint in US-China ties, with Beijing refusing to rule out the use of military force to gain control of the island and the US bound by law to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is with Mr Trump in China, told NBC News that Taiwan was discussed, saying the Chinese "always raise it ... we always make clear our position and we move on to the other topics”.

"US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today," Mr Rubio added.

Mr Trump, who revels in grand occasions, appeared in his element in the public spectacle.

He did not respond to a reporter's shouted question whether the leaders had discussed Taiwan when he posed with Mr Xi for photos at the Temple of Heaven UNESCO World Heritage site.

"There are those who say this may be the biggest summit ever," he said earlier at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, after a ceremony that featured an honor guard and throngs of children waving flowers and flags.

At a lavish state banquet, Mr Xi called the China-US relationship the most important in the world and added: "We must make it work and never mess it up."

China's Foreign Ministry said Mr Xi had told Mr Trump that preparatory negotiations between US and Chinese trade teams on May 13 had reached "balanced and positive outcomes”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led those talks, said he expected progress on establishing mechanisms to support future bilateral trade and investment, and an announcement about large Chinese orders for Boeing aircraft.

Jailed China critic Jimmy Lai

When asked about Hong Kong’s most vocal China critic, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail in February on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials, Mr Rubio said Mr Trump had raised the case with Mr Xi.

“The President always raises that case and a couple others, and obviously we’ll hope to get a positive response from that,” Mr Rubio told NBC News.

“We’d be open to any arrangement that would work for them, as long as he’s given his freedom,” he said of Lai, who had denied all charges against him.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, when asked about Lai, has previously said that Hong Kong affairs were an internal matter for China. REUTERS