Following months of trade tensions triggered by Trump’s tariffs, Xi and Trump reached a framework agreement in South Korea on Oct 30. Washington agreed not to impose 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports and China would hold off on an export licensing regime for crucial rare earth minerals and magnets.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hoped a final deal on rare earths would be done by Thanksgiving.
China has resumed purchases of US soybeans and halted its expanded curbs on rare earths exports. The US lowered tariffs on China by 10 per cent in exchange for Beijing’s pledge to help curb the flow of chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid fentanyl to North America.
Xi said that China-US ties have stabilised and improved since the meeting.
“The facts again show that cooperation benefits both sides while confrontation hurts both,” he told Trump, urging the two countries to maintain positive momentum.
Xi reiterated that China supports all efforts conducive to peace in Ukraine.
JAPAN’S MISSILE PLANS
China’s readout of the call emphasised Taiwan, an issue neither side mentioned in statements following the South Korea meeting. Trump had said after that meeting that they did not speak about Taiwan, which Beijing consistently raises as a red line in relations with Washington. Weeks later, the US approved a US$330 million arms sale to Taipei.
Taiwan expert Bonnie Glaser, of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Xi’s Taiwan statement reprised one he made on a visit to Russia in May.
“Xi likely used the opportunity to set out his stance on Taiwan, perhaps because there was a lot of media on the Busan meeting which noted that Taiwan was not discussed,” Glaser said.
Trump has not directly waded into the simmering diplomatic row between Japan and China over Taiwan, though his ambassador to Japan, George Glass, has said the US supports Tokyo in the face of China’s “coercion”.
Earlier on Monday, Beijing criticised Tokyo’s plan to deploy a medium-range surface-to-air missile unit on Yonaguni, an island about 110km off Taiwan, calling it an attempt to “create regional tension and provoke military confrontation.”
Marvin Park, a former director for Taiwan on the US National Security Council, said the missiles were clearly defensive in nature, with a range of only about 50km, and could not even reach Taiwan.
“China’s deeper fear is about the potential of future Japanese militarisation. If they bring in this purely defensive system now, that could make it easier on the Japanese side to advocate for more advanced capabilities in the southwest islands,” said Park, now with the American Global Strategies consultancy.
