 "What Trump didn't discuss with Xi: 3 hot issues")
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, held “amazing” talks on Thursday in South Korea’s Busan, where the two leaders discussed trade, fentanyl, Russia-Ukraine, among other things.
“We have a great relationship. Xi is a tough negotiator,” Trump said, adding that the two countries will have “fantastic” ties from now.
In response, Xi said, “China and the US can jointly shoulder our responsibility as major countries and work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world.”
While the two leaders held a nearly two-hour-long meeting with each other, covering a variety of topics, they also missed out on several important issues that needed their attention.
Blind eye on Taiwan?
Although Taiwan was a bit sceptical about losing Trump’s support after his meeting with Xi, the two leaders skipped discussing the topic altogether.
When asked if the concerns over China’s growing assertiveness over Taiwan were ever raised, Trump said that the region “didn’t come up during the meeting.”
Not much has changed since Trump’s first presidency. His former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was hawkish on China over Taiwan as much as his current State Secretary, Marco Rubio, is.
Washington’s goal, however, remains the same: to persuade China against asserting dominance over Taiwan.
Before the talks, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung had said it is “confident” in its relations with the US amid the Trump-Xi talks. When asked by reporters about the meeting and whether Taiwan could come up, the government said it was “of course” paying attention to the talks.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsTaiwan and the US had close cooperation on security and other matters, he said in Taipei. “So we have confidence in Taiwan-US relations and have close communication channels,” Lin added, quoted by Reuters.
Ignoring oil purchase
Although the two leaders extensively covered the Russia-Ukraine war in their discussions, the topic of China buying Russian oil was ignored.
Trump said, “We are going to work together with Xi on Ukraine to get something done. We are actually talking to Russia about denuclearisation.”
He, however, ostensibly forgot to mention the oil purchase issue, which has been a major point of contention between US and China. Trump has repeatedly threatened Beijing with tariffs over its purchase of Russian oil, a move that he thinks is feeding Moscow’s “war machine”.
A Reuters report says that Chinese companies like PetroChina and Sinopec will stop importing seaborne Russian oil for the short term after Trump sanctioned Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil.
Blackwell chips forgotten
Despite saying that he would talk to Xi about Blackwell chips before the Busan meeting, the two leaders fell short of discussing the topic.
Sales of the US firm’s high-end AI chips to China, which accounted for 13 per cent of its revenue in the past financial year, have been a key sticking point in protracted trade talks between the world’s two largest economies this year.
Beijing has long been irked by Washington’s export controls that ban Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips to China. The U.S. has justified these restrictions by alleging the Chinese military would use the chips to increase its capabilities.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Gyeongju, South Korea, Trump praised Nvidia’s current flagship Blackwell model as the “super-duper chip” and said he might speak to Xi about it, without elaborating.
With inputs from agencies
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