Taiwan to be key issue at Trump's summit with China's President Xi
Taiwan, one of the world's biggest diplomatic flashpoints, will be top of mind for President Xi when he meets with President Trump.
When President Trump arrives in Beijing aboard Air Force One for a high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping , the top issue on the Chinese leader's mind won't be the global impacts from the Iran war and bottlenecked Strait of Hormuz.
Instead, Xi will be focused on Taiwan , the tiny island democracy in the western Pacific Ocean that China claims as its own.
Ownership of the island is the top issue in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. The U.S. has maintained a policy of "strategic ambiguity towards" Taiwan for decades, refusing to state whether or not it would intervene militarily if China attacked Taiwan. At the same time, the U.S. has sold more than $50 billion worth of arms to Taiwan for its national defense, allowing it to build asymmetric capabilities against China.
Late last year the U.S. approved a record $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which angered the Chinese. However, an even larger package worth $14 billion package is on Mr. Trump's desk awaiting approval. Mr. Trump said he would discuss that package with Xi, a concession no other U.S. president has ever made and a violation of former president Ronald Reagan's 1982 commitments to Taiwan.
Mr. Trump's comments have raised the temperature in Taipei, with officials concerned that Mr. Trump could potentially sell Taiwan out to Xi. China wants Mr. Trump to change the U.S. government's official language on Taiwan from saying that it "does not support" the island's independence to saying that America "opposes" Taiwanese independence. While it may sound like a semantic issue, the tweaking of the diplomatic language could be consequential for Taiwan's inhabitants.
Taiwan's deputy foreign minister Chen Ming-chi told CBS News in a wide-ranging interview that he is not worried about the U.S. abandoning Taiwan, calling the country a "dependable ally" and pointing out that there are mutual benefits from the U.S.-Taiwanese partnership. Taiwan plays a key role in geopolitics and the global supply chain . The territory produces 90% of the world's high-end semiconductors used for AI and defense technology.