Chinese leader Xi Jinping called Taiwan the “most important issue” in Sino-U.S. relations during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Xi had asked Trump to be “cautious” when supplying arms to the island, state media reported, adding that he “attaches great importance” to ties with Washington and hoped the two sides would find ways to resolve their differences.
Trump called the call “excellent” and “long and thorough.”
Wednesday’s call follows a wave of visits from Western leadersincluding Britain’s Keir Starmer, have visited China in recent months, hoping to restore relations with the world’s second-largest economy.
Trump himself is scheduled to visit China in April, a trip he says he is “looking forward to with great anticipation.”
He added that Beijing plans to buy 20 million tonnes of US soybeans, up from 12 million tonnes currently.
“The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is extremely good, and we both realize how important it is that it continues that way,” he wrote in a Truth Social article.
The two leaders last spoke by phone in November about a range of issues, including trade, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fentanyl and Taiwan, according to Trump and China’s Foreign Ministry.
Besides Taiwan and soybeans, Trump and Xi also discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine, the current situation in Iran and China’s purchase of oil and gas from the United States, the US president wrote.
On Taiwan, Xi said the self-ruled island was “China’s territory” and that Beijing “must safeguard [Taiwan’s] sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
“The United States must treat the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with caution,” he warned, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
China has long pledged to “reunify” with Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.
The United States maintains formal ties with Beijing rather than Taiwan and has followed a decades-long diplomatic rope. But it remains a powerful ally of Taiwan and the island’s largest arms supplier.
In December, the Trump administration announced a huge arms sale worth around $11 billion (£8.2 billion) to Taiwan, which included advanced rocket launchers, self-propelled howitzers and a variety of missiles.
Beijing declared at the time that this “attempt to support [Taiwan’s] independence” would only “accelerate the push toward a dangerous and violent situation across the Taiwan Strait.”
“Just as the United States has its concerns, China, for its part, also has concerns,” Xi told Trump on Wednesday.
“If both sides work in the same direction in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, we can certainly find ways to address each other’s concerns,” he said.
Hours before his call with Trump, Xi held a virtual meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, during which both praised strengthening ties between Beijing and Moscow.