Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Joe Biden during their four-hour meeting on Wednesday that Taiwan was the biggest, most dangerous issue in U.S.-China ties, a senior U.S. official told reporters.
The official quoted Xi as saying China’s preference was for peaceful “reunification” with the Chinese-claimed island of Taiwan, but that he went on to talk about conditions in which force could be used.
Xi was trying to indicate that China is not preparing for a massive invasion of Taiwan, but that does not change the U.S. approach, the official said.
“President Xi … underscored that this was the biggest, most potentially dangerous issue in U.S.-China relations, laid out clearly that, you know, their preference was for peaceful reunification but then moved immediately to conditions that the potential use of force could be utilized,” the senior U.S. official told reporters, referring to Xi’s comments on Taiwan.
Biden responded by assuring Xi that Washington was determined to maintain peace in the region.
“President Biden responded very clearly that the long-standing position of the United States was … determination to maintain peace and stability,” the official said.
“President Xi responded: look, peace is … all well and good but at some point we need to move towards resolution more generally,” the official said.
China’s desire to own more of Asia is a huge threat to world peace.
It is interesting to see how different the US responds to China wanting Taiwan versus say Tibet. We just rolled over on Tibet but seem ready for war over Taiwan. Which strategically is completely understandable but still shitty.
The US had no diplomatic ties with China when they invaded Tibet and no practical means of stopping it. Taiwan is a completely different situation geographically
The situation on the ground was always different. In the straight crisis the US already had military forces in the area that could be used to dissuade an escalation. Helping Tibet would have required a full invasion of China.