Key events
David Smith
Why does Donald Trump look so at home in China?
The US president spent day one of his summit in Beijing basking in rigid pageantry, heroically managing not to offend his hosts and offering the verdict: “China is beautiful.”
A man who has shown authoritarian yearnings in his own country – discrediting elections, cowing universities, accusing journalists of treason – visibly delighted in one where the strongman fantasy is made flesh.
Not for the first time, he was far better behaved in one of the world’s most repressive regimes than when he shows up in Europe’s democracies like a human wrecking ball.
There has been a strange, uncharacteristic deference and circumspection about Trump since he left Washington.
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Donald Trump began his final day in Beijing with a defensive social media post claiming Xi Jinping was not talking about him when he “very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation”.
The US president said the Chinese leader’s comments referred to former president Joe Biden.
Xi was only complimentary about Trump’s actions since returning to the White House in January last year, Trump said in his post on Truth Social.
double quotation mark President Xi was not referring to the incredible rise that the United States has displayed to the world during the 16 spectacular months of the Trump Administration … In fact, President Xi congratulated me on so many tremendous successes in such a short period of time.”
US policy on Taiwan ‘unchanged’ – Rubio
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has said the US policy on Taiwan is “unchanged” after the summit talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing.
“Our policies on that have not changed,” Rubio told NBC News. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now.”
Xi warned Trump on Thursday that China and the US could come into conflict if the issue over self-ruled Taiwan – claimed by Beijing – is mishandled.
“The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,” Xi said.
Welcome summary
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are set to meet on Friday to wrap up a high-stakes two-day state visitthat has featured pomp and business deals but also a stark warning from Xi that mishandling the Taiwan issue could push US-China relations to “a very dangerous place”.
Trump is on the first visit by a US president to China since 2017 and has been hoping for tangible results that might improve his sagging approval ratings ahead of the crucial midterm elections.
The two leaders are scheduled to have tea and lunch today before Trump flies back to the US.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio told NBC in an interview broadcast on Thursday that the US was hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others.
Lai, a prominent pro-democracy activist and critic of the Chinese Communist party, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong after being found guilty of national security and sedition offences. He later said he would not appeal against his conviction, opening the door for political negotiations to his release.
During the Beijing summit 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. A brief US summary of Thursday’s talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the strait of Hormuz and Xi’s apparent interest in buying US oil to reduce China’s dependence on Middle East supplies.
In other developments:
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Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets – its first purchase of US-made commercial jets in nearly a decade. But markets were expecting a much higher number, with earlier news reports suggesting 500 or more could be involved, and Boeing shares fell more than 4% after the comments.
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Xi’s remarks on Taiwan, the democratically governed island Beijing claims, represented a sharp warning during a pomp-filled summit that otherwise appeared friendly and relaxed. They came in a closed-door meeting that ran for more than two hours, Beijing said.
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US secretary of state Marco Rubio 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”. Rubio is among a large contingent of US officials and business leaders who travelled with Trump to China.
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At a lavish state banquet on Wednesday, Xi called the China-US relationship the most important in the world and added: “We must make it work and never mess it up.” Trump earlier told Xi their two countries were “going to have a fantastic future together”.
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The summit has been aimed at maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October and Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.
With news agencies
