Xi gave Trump a clear warning. His red-line threat is one that most people don’t understand

May 18, 2026 — 5:00am

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China is willing to go to war over Taiwan. That’s the unambiguous message Xi Jinping gave Donald Trump when the two presidents met for more than two hours behind closed doors last week. Xi’s larger audience was the East Asian region and the news and think-tank ecosystem that explains global affairs to the US public. That is why, even before Xi finished his remarks, China’s Foreign Ministry said he told Trump that “The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations.” Unless it was “handled properly”, there will be “clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy”.

The ministry downplayed the topics that Trump had been most eager to talk about with Xi: Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, buying Boeing aircraft and ending the flow of fentanyl precursors into the US.

China’s leaders do not use words like “clashes and conflicts” lightly. They prefer anodyne word salads such as “win-win co-operation”, “promote harmony”, and “shared prosperity”. But Taiwan is the reddest of red lines for China for three reasons. As a vibrant, multiparty democracy, it represents an ideological challenge to the Communist Party of China’s preferred........

© The Sydney Morning Herald