1 Why Xi called Trump to talk about Taiwan
On Nov. 24, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with President Donald Trump.
Per a PRC foreign ministry readout of the call, Xi spoke about the “successful meeting” between the two in South Korea in October where they “recalibrated the course of the giant ship of China-U.S. relations and provided more momentum for it to sail forward steadily.” Xi added that both sides should “keep up the momentum” of cooperation, “keep moving forward in the right direction on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,” and “lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of problems.”
Xi then “outlined China’s principled position on the Taiwan question” and “underscored that Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the post-war international order.” The U.S. “understands how important the Taiwan question is to China,” Xi said according to the official readout.
Finally, the readout noted that Xi and Trump discussed “the Ukraine crisis” and Xi stressed the PRC’s support for “all efforts that are conducive to peace.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump said that his call with Xi was a follow-up to their “highly successful meeting” in South Korea and that it was “very good.” Trump said that they “discussed many topics, including Ukraine/Russia, Fentanyl, Soybeans and other Farm Products, etc,” and added that “our relationship with China is extremely strong.” Trump also noted “significant progress on both sides in keeping our agreements current and accurate” and “we can set our sights on the big picture.” Trump said that he accepted an invitation by Xi to visit Beijing in April 2026 and Xi will travel to the U.S. for a state visit later in the year. Finally, Trump said that he and Xi agreed on the importance of communicating often.
Hours after the Xi-Trump phone call, Trump called Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi. According to Takaichi, Trump explained to her the “current state of U.S.-China relations, including the U.S.-China leaders’ phone call” held earlier in the day. “I believe we were able to confirm the close cooperation between Japan and the U.S., following President Trump’s recent visit to Japan, under the current international circumstances,” Takaichi said. “President Trump said that I am a very close friend of his and that I should feel free to call him any time.”
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The Wall Street Journal wrote in a Nov. 24 report that Taiwan was Xi’s focus of the call and Trump steered the conversation to Ukraine, citing people familiar with the matter. People close to Beijing told the Journal that Xi “sees a strategic opening to influence Trump’s thinking on Taiwan.”
The people close to Beijing also noted that Xi was “reluctant” to bring up the “sensitive” Taiwan issue with Trump in South Korea and both sides “already had various pressing issues to discuss for 90 minutes.” Instead, Xi plans to talk about the Taiwan issue directly with Trump when he visits Beijing in April next year and “press Trump on the need to move beyond the U.S.’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity and formally state that the U.S. ‘opposes’ Taiwan’s independence and supports ‘peaceful reunification’” — changes in U.S. policy that would isolate Taiwan.
The Journal said that the last time that a Chinese leader initiated contact with a U.S. president was on Sept. 11, 2001 when then-Party boss Jiang Zemin sent a telegram of condolence to then-President George W. Bush.
Backdrop
The latest Xi-Trump phone call comes after the U.S. and the PRC agreed to a year-long trade truce in Busan in October 2025 and following about three weeks of increased PRC-Japan tensions over new Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s stance that Japan would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily in the event of a PRC invasion (“a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency”).
Our take
Xi Jinping reaching out to Donald Trump to talk about Taiwan affirms several of the points we made in our last newsletter about why the CCP reacted strongly to Sanae Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks. Notably, Beijing views Taiwan as a “red line” (possibly even the reddest of its “red lines” on international affairs) and will do whatever it can to push back against what it perceives to be outside efforts to “interfere” in an “internal matter.”
While Xi does not name Japan per the official readout of the conversation, the country is hinted at in Xi’s references to the “post-war international order” and request that the U.S. and China “jointly safeguard the victory of WWII.” It is very likely that Xi reached out directly to Trump in a bid to sway him to rein in Japan on the Taiwan issue, including getting Takaichi to openly change her “Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency” stance and distance Japan from Taiwan. Trump’s lack of mention of Taiwan in his Truth Social post and Takaichi’s description of her call with Trump, however, suggest that Xi’s appeal might not have found purchase, at least for the present.
For Xi and the CCP, the phone call with Trump and their official readout is already a “win” even if the U.S. does nothing to “rein in” Japan or change its Taiwan policy. As we previously analyzed, the CCP’s current retaliation against Japan is more performative than substantial. Xi’s call adds to the PRC’s recent performative actions in the diplomatic sphere (PRC ambassador to the United Nations Fu Cong writing a letter to the UN secretary-general about Takaichi’s remarks and PRC foreign minister Wang Yi issuing a statement about the issue), allowing him the opportunity to spin propaganda and demonstrate to the Chinese people that his leadership is taking Japan’s insistence on defending China’s sovereignty over Taiwan very seriously and has made all possible representations to the relevant parties. The fact that Xi made the unprecedented step of reaching out to the American president would underscore to the CCP and the Chinese people that he places great weight on the Taiwan matter and in defending the PRC’s sovereignty.
Whether Beijing escalates tensions with Tokyo after the Xi-Trump call depends on Xi and the CCP’s requirements. It is possible that Xi brought up the Taiwan issue to Trump to signal that the PRC is preparing to take stronger action against Japan and that the U.S. should back China on the issue or at least not get in the way. Conversely, it is also possible that Xi wants to call time on the PRC’s now over three week-long “struggle session” against Japan, and therefore made the call to Trump to facilitate a smoothing of tensions among the three sides. A third scenario is a mixture of the first two — the CCP is looking to extend its “punishment” of Japan for a while longer for propaganda reasons, and hence needs to take major diplomatic action (i.e. Xi taking the initiative to call Trump) now to avoid U.S. misunderstanding and sanctions in the interim before it eventually winds down the retaliation.
