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 preference was for peaceful “reunification”
Wow, that’s the most direct threat that invasion is also an option I’ve ever seen from China. We prefer #1, but we will settle for #2 if #1 isn’t an option.
Xi is a very dangerous man.
I don’t understand why China can’t accept Taiwan is an independent country?Taiwan is a ridiculously valuable tech asset. If China can seize control of TSMC, it’d be in an incredible position to make tons of money and potentially spy on the rest of the world. If the factories wind up inoperable for whatever reason… well, most of the chips they produce aren’t being sent to China anyway, so while it wouldn’t be good for anyone, it’d be much worse for the rest of the world. And with TSMC making efforts to offshore its talent and production anyway (even if it has been with very limited success so far), China wants to make a move sooner rather than later.
It’s a very valuable spot geographically in the island chain too. With Taiwan under their control, they basically oversee all cargo ships coming through the South China Sea to East Asian countries like Japan and Korea, not to mention the additional economic area and military potential.
Yeah, I think geography is the main point here. As it stands, China’s coast is fully surrounded by American allies in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines and owning Taiwan could give them control of the surrounding waters allowing their cargo ships to safely pass through if things get ugly with the US.
Seizing TSMC is only a good move in theory. First, they wouldn’t be able to operate it as well. Second, the world would immediately mobilize to divest from TSMC dependence, just as it is divesting from Chinese manufacturing toward Vietnam and India. Third, it would never get as far as China successfully continuing the TSMC dominance but ALSO with embedded spyware. Huawei equipment is being ripped out and thrown away in data centers across the western world. There’s zero chance the world would just sit there and accept compromised chips.
TSMC isn’t worth anything without EUV light, only ASML makes the light that makes modern processes possible. Without new lights, TSMC can only run for a few months because the lifetime of those lights are pretty short. Then they would have to revert to noncompetitive processes. Only Canon is somewhat close AFAIK. So no luck there either.
Not totally true. There’s a reason why TSMC chips have better yields and efficiency than Samsung chips, even though they are on the same nodes and also use ASML machines. AFAIK, you still need to develop a know-how to build good chips, and ASML’s tools enable that, true, but they don’t know the rest of the process to make that happen. Neither does Apple nor other chip designers, and that’s worth value.
Without the tools, the knowhow is worthless. Apart from that, Taiwan say they have made sure TSMC will never fall into the hands of China.
I’m not disputing it will cause major disruption in western supplies too, obviously neither Samsung or Intel will be able to replace TSMC immediately, they are behind both on quality and volume, and they are the only existing alternatives to high end process manufacturing. Apple doesn’t know shit in that regard, they are not a manufacturer, and TSMC is not a chip designer.
Money, pride, and control?
Yes probably, but that is very easily shown to be irrational.
Taiwan is an independent country now, they have no right to control that by force.
Peace is a better condition to prosper under, and is therefore more profitable than war.
Regarding pride, the rebels won all of mainland China, their enemy fleeing to Taiwan is almost ideal, to avoid a massacre. Wanting a massacre for pride is as evil as you can get.I think USA and the rest of the international community needs to tell China to kindly stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
We gave in to Russia for far to long, both USA and EU. It only created more problems not less.
Stop appeasing authoritarians who desire an ever bigger powergrab.
It’s not china. It’s their leaders that want to be glorified as the ones that reunified china.
Same reason the yankee states couldn’t accept the south seceding.
And the same reason you go to couples therapy
The big difference being that the South was actually part of the United States of America while Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China. A civil war isn’t the same thing as imperial conquest.
Correct. A better comparison would be the annexation of Hawaii by the US.
Appropriate username with this post.
If you want to use the couples therapy analogy, it would be more like you were forced into an arranged marriage with an abusive person, then you got forcefully divorced and remarried, then divorced again and your first ex-spouse started beating you (again) and trying to remarry you, then after decades of separation that ex-ex is now forcing you at gun point to go to couples therapy because they don’t want you to keep the property you got in the divorce settlement.
If you want to talk about the yankees, it would be more like the south successfully seceded but later decided they wanted to start a war to be one country again.
That…. That sounds like a threat.
It’s nothing new whatsoever. With all the airspace incursions and other saber rattling they’ve been doing, a hedged statement like this is a weak threat indeed. “Hey, punk! I’m talking to you! I’d prefer if there weren’t, but there could be conditions where the use of force is utilized.”
OoooOOooh I’m quaking in my boots.
So, go and ask Taiwan for unification. Strike a deal, give them rights, allow them to pay taxes.
The problem with Xi, is not his vision, but in his methods.
He has harassed Taiwan for more than decades. Throwing missiles over it’s landmasses. Using maps claiming taiwan is in China’s territory. Blockades, embargos, and threats of annihilation.
And it isn’t like Xi couldn’t turn this around, but every day he chooses to escalate tensions in the region rather then reaching for peaceful solution. It is clear his motives are not reunification. At least for the Taiwan people.
Rights, like China gave Hong Kong? They will never allow a unique enclave in China, let alone Taiwan- the old political government of China.
the resolution: don’t mess with taiwan and we don’t mess with your entire country
Why I think Xi is correct in saying " this was the biggest, most potentially dangerous issue in U.S.-China relations", Exhibit A.
Fuck off, Xi
China has no claim to Taiwan whatsoever and I’m not talking about history. The majority of the Taiwanese people do not want unification, peaceful or otherwise, and that is all that matters. They’ve seen what happened to China’s “Special Administrative Region” and know what’s in store for them once the grubby old men yelling at flags in Peking get their greedy little hands on a free country …
If the people in Taiwan at some point change their mind (perhaps because China has changed significantly), then that is their decision as well, but until then, I’m all for supporting them to maintain their freedom, whatever the cost. “Mourir pour Taiwan?” - Yes (*), if you make it necessary by starting a war of aggression against your neighbors.
The days of “backyard politics” are over, as Putin is just learning the hard way in Ukraine.
(*) And we all know the usual counter: “That’s easy for you to say, keyboard warrior!” - but who wouldn’t be impacted by a war between China and the US?
China and Taiwan can be one country tomorrow. I’ve said it a hundred times.
All China has to do is cede full control to Taiwan. It will be governed by Taiwan but it will be one country.
Yes I know it’s too hard politically and unrealistic. Because they don’t really want unification they want control.
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.
Yeah, it’s the top issue. So drop it, Xi. The air is slowly leaking out of the China bubble. They’re not going to do anything in Taiwan. They’ve rattled their sabers to pieces already.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
“President Biden responded very clearly that the long-standing position of the United States was … determination to maintain peace and stability,” the official said.
China has long taken a carrot and stick approach towards Taiwan, both promising to work for peaceful “reunification” at the same time as threatening force.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry, responding to the Biden-Xi meeting, said the government has never sought to predict whether or when China might attack but was concentrating on boosting its defenses and winning international support.
Biden and Xi met for the first time in a year on Wednesday for talks aimed at easingfriction between the two superpowers over military conflicts, drug-trafficking and artificial intelligence, and said they had made “real progress.”
Senior U.S. military officers have said that Xi has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027.
The original article contains 462 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It’s strange to me that he’s not made one argument on principle alone
