Xi Strikes Aggressive Tone on Taiwan as US Holds Firm on Arms Sales

The summit in Beijing on May 14 between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping concluded its first day with a notable flashpoint: Taiwan and U.S. arms sales to the island.

According to a statement released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xi warned Trump that the two countries risked “clashes and even conflicts” if the Taiwan issue was not handled carefully.

“The U.S. side must exercise extra caution in handling the Taiwan question,” the statement reads.

“If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”

The White House released a brief readout of the meeting between Trump and Xi. Unlike Beijing’s announcement, it made no mention of Taiwan, instead focusing extensively on the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz, and economic cooperation between the two countries.

A source familiar with the talks told The Epoch Times that the administration had expected Beijing to bring up Taiwan at the summit and had already decided to disregard it and move on. And that’s exactly how Trump and his team in Beijing handled it, the person said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that Xi raised the issue, but arms sales were not a primary topic in today’s discussion.

“U.S. policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today, and as of the meeting that we had here today,” he told NBC News.

Rubio added that when discussions about Taiwan arise, the United States consistently responds that any attempt to force a change in the island through military action “would be problematic.” He emphasized that U.S. policy on the issue has remained “consistent across multiple presidential administrations.”

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, said that China’s statement about Taiwan was unsurprising, describing it as “pretty rote,” and commended Trump for disregarding it.

“They have raised the level of their rhetoric somewhat over the last few years when it comes to Taiwan, but it remains pretty much in the same running lane,” he told The Epoch Times. “And hat tip to the president, he pretty much just ignored it.”

Taiwan remains one of the most sensitive issues between Washington and Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims the democratically governed island as its territory, while Taiwan rejects this and maintains its own government. The United States officially maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan but continues to provide the island with defensive arms, a practice Beijing strongly opposes.

In December 2025, Washington approved an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan, the largest weapons package ever proposed for the island and the second deal under the current Trump administration, following a $330 million arms sale in November 2025 for spare and repair parts for Taiwan’s aircraft fleet.

The latest package covers a wide range of items, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, self-propelled howitzers, two different Altius loitering munition drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, anti-armor missiles, AH-1W helicopter spare and repair parts, and refurbishment kits for Harpoon missiles.

On May 8, Taiwan’s opposition-dominated parliament approved a $25 billion special defense budget, mainly to buy U.S. weapons, well below the $40 billion sought by the Taiwanese government.

Just days after the U.S. announcement of arms sales in December, the CCP staged massive live-fire military drills around Taiwan involving large numbers of fighter aircraft and naval vessels.

The Chinese military said the drills were meant to serve as a “serious warning” against what it called “Taiwan Independence” separatist forces.

The CCP, which has never ruled Taiwan, considers the self-governed island to be a renegade province and has never ruled out the possibility of using force to seize it. Taiwan has repeatedly rejected the CCP’s claims.

Washington opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, but is required by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

Taiwan produces more than 95 percent of the world’s advanced chips and more than 90 percent of data servers and artificial intelligence servers, according to Alexander Yui, Taiwan’s top representative to the United States.

A conflict involving Taiwan would cause a “crisis much larger” than the war in Iran and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, Yui told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” on May 3.

Yui said the Chinese regime is the aggressor that is “militarily preparing for conflict.”

Such a conflict would affect not only China and Taiwan, but also Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States, Yui said, and the ripple effects would be “almost unimaginable.”

Human Rights

While trade, Taiwan, and Iran dominate discussions in Beijing, the Trump administration made it clear before the trip that Beijing’s human rights violations and wrongful detentions would also be addressed.

On May 11, Trump said he planned to discuss the cases of media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai and pastor Ezra Jin Mingri with Xi.

On May 13, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions urging Trump to address the issue of political prisoners currently held by the Chinese Communist Party.

The House measure, which passed unanimously, was introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The measure named five individuals who are described as unfairly punished by Beijing for exercising freedom of speech and religion: Pastor Jin Mingri, Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife Pang Yu, Jimmy Lai, and Dr. Gulshan Abbas.

“Human rights cannot be separated from America’s engagement with China,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor on May 14. “The release of these individuals must remain a priority at the highest level of diplomacy.”