China plans to reunite with Taiwan, President Xi Jinping openly told US President Joe Biden during their summit in San Francisco in November, NBC reported on Wednesday. Beijing would still like to do it peacefully, the Chinese leader said at a meeting attended by a dozen US and Chinese officials, adding that Beijing also warned Washington against interfering in the process.
During the conversation, Xi was “blunt and frank” on the issue, but did not sound off “confronting,” three former and current US officials told NBC. The Chinese leader has also reportedly expressed concerns about the candidates running for the position of the island’s president in the upcoming elections.
Beijing had previously reacted sharply to comments made by some Taiwanese pro-independence politicians ahead of the vote scheduled for next month. China would allow it “enough space” for peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but will not tolerate any separatist activity, Beijing stressed in November and warned against “Taiwan’s independence means war.”
Ahead of the San Francisco summit in November, Beijing also called on Washington to make a public statement supporting Taiwan’s peaceful reunification with China and opposing the self-governing island’s independence, according to NBC. The White House declined to do so, it added.
When Biden asked him at the summit to respect the island’s electoral process, Xi responded by saying that’s what peace is “All well and good” but Beijing is willing to move forward with resolving the Taiwan issue, the newspaper claimed.
The Chinese president still rejected US military claims that China was prepared to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027. An exact timetable for the process does not exist at all, he explained, officials said.
In February, CIA Director William Burns, citing US intelligence agencies, claimed that Xi had ordered the Chinese military to be ready to launch an operation against Taiwan by 2027. “That doesn’t mean he has decided to invade in 2027, or any other year for that matter,” Burns added at the time, calling this information proof of Beijing’s ambitions.
In November, Xi still claimed that China would like to peacefully reunite with Taiwan. In October 2022, the Chinese president admitted the possibility that Beijing would attack Taiwan if the island declared independence, but clarified that the threat of force “aimed solely at interference by outside forces and the few separatists who are looking for it” to break away from China.
Biden himself hailed the November summit as the summit “most productive” one in years. During the meeting, Washington and Beijing agreed to restore communications between their militaries. Relations between the two nations have deteriorated amid accusations of the other fueling tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
In early December, China again called on the US to stay out of the Taiwan issue and stick to the One China policy, when Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by telephone with Foreign Minister Antony Blinken. Beijing considers Taiwan an inalienable part of its territory under the One China principle.
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