{"id":448023,"date":"2026-05-14T06:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/448023\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:47:12","slug":"xi-jinping-warns-donald-trump-that-mishandling-taiwan-issue-could-lead-to-conflict-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/448023\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi Jinping warns Donald Trump that \u2018mishandling\u2019 Taiwan issue could lead to conflict \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping<\/a> has warned Donald Trump<\/a> the issue of Taiwan<\/a>, if it is \u201cmishandled\u201d, could lead to conflict between the two superpowers. <\/p>\n

Describing Taiwan as the most important issue in the relationship between China<\/a> and the United States<\/a>, he said that independence for the self-governing island was incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf handled well, the relationship can remain overall stable; if mishandled, it could lead to clashes or even conflict, pushing ties into a very dangerous situation,\u201d Chinese state media quoted Xi as telling Trump when they met in Beijing\u2019s Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Chinese president greeted Trump on Tiananmen Square with a military display featuring goose-stepping soldiers, marching bands and children waving flowers and Chinese and American flags. At the start of their meeting, Xi told Trump the world was watching to see if they could create a new paradigm of relations between great powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world? Can we, in the interests of the wellbeing of our two peoples and the future of humanity, build a brighter future together for our bilateral relations? These are the questions vital to history, to the world and to the people. They are the questions of our times that you and I need to answer as leaders of major countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"XiXi Jinping greets Donald Trump at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Photograph: Brendan SMIALOWSKI\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s official delegation in the Great Hall of the People included secretary of state Marco Rubio, treasury secretary Scott Bessent and defence secretary Pete Hegseth. Also with the president in Beijing were chief executives from some of the world\u2019s biggest companies, including Elon Musk, Apple\u2019s Tim Cook and Nvidia\u2019s Jenson Huang.<\/p>\n

Trump, who visited China during his first term in the White House in 2017, said that he and Xi had the longest relationship between presidents of their countries. He said they had a fantastic relationship, adding that he had \u201csuch respect\u201d for China and for the job Xi had done as leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You\u2019re a great leader. Sometimes people don\u2019t like me saying it, but I say it anyway because it\u2019s true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The meeting at the Great Hall of the People lasted two hours and 15 minutes and the two leaders were due to visit the Temple of Heaven on Thursday afternoon before attending a state banquet in the evening. <\/p>\n

Trump and Xi will meet again on Friday morning before the US president returns to Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xi Jinping has warned Donald Trump the issue of Taiwan, if it is \u201cmishandled\u201d, could lead to conflict…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,969,42,43,2073,40,38,41,39,90,12139],"class_list":["post-448023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-taiwan","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}