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.

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.

    • Heresy_generator
      18•1 year ago

      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.

    • @dogslayeggs@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7•1 year ago

      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.