{"id":459842,"date":"2026-02-05T10:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459842\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:14:08","slug":"be-prudent-about-supplying-arms-to-taiwan-xi-tells-trump-in-call-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459842\/","title":{"rendered":"Be \u2018prudent\u2019 about supplying arms to Taiwan, Xi tells Trump in call | China"},"content":{"rendered":"

In their first call since November, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned US president Donald Trump to be \u201cprudent\u201d about supplying arms to Taiwan<\/a>, according to a readout of their call provided by China\u2019s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Xi emphasised that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,\u201d the readout said. \u201cChina must safeguard its own sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will never allow Taiwan to be separated. The US must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours later, the self-ruled island\u2019s president, Lai Ching-te, said ties with the US were \u201crock solid\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Taiwan-US relationship is rock solid, and all cooperation projects will continue uninterrupted,\u201d Taiwan\u2019s president, Lai Ching-te, told reporters during a visit to textile merchants in western Taiwan on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Taiwan is a self-ruled democracy that China claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. Beijing prohibits all countries it has diplomatic relations with \u2013 including the US \u2013 from having formal ties with Taipei.<\/p>\n

Still, while the US doesn\u2019t officially recognise Taiwan as a country, it is the island\u2019s strongest informal backer and arms supplier.<\/p>\n

In December, the US state department announced its largest-ever arms sales package to Taiwan<\/a>, valued at more than $11.1bn and including missiles, artillery systems and drones. The package is yet to be approved by Congress.<\/p>\n

China reacted angrily to the proposed arms sales<\/a>, conducting two days of military drills<\/a> around the island in late December, for which it dispatched air, navy and missile units.<\/p>\n

The arms sales are also facing pushback from Taiwan\u2019s opposition KMT party and some of its population, along with a proposed increase of defense spending to 3.3% of Taiwan\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s opposition-controlled parliament has blocked Lai\u2019s budget plan, including a $40bn special defense budget, proposing instead a much smaller defense spending plan.<\/p>\n

Late on Wednesday, Trump had said the call with Xi \u2013 which covered topics including Taiwan\u2019s future \u2013 was \u201cexcellent\u201d and \u201cthorough\u201d in a post on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

The call also covered Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, \u201cthe current situation with Iran\u201d and China buying oil and gas from the US, Trump wrote in the post.<\/p>\n

He added that he was looking forward to a trip to China in April that will be the first of his current term in office.<\/p>\n

Trump also said China was considering buying 20m tons of US soya beans in the current season, up from 12m tons in the previous season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In their first call since November, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned US president Donald Trump to be \u201cprudent\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-459842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}