Trump puts Taiwan arms sales, Jimmy Lai on agenda with Xi meeting

President Donald Trump said Monday that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the imprisonment of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai would be on his agenda for the Beijing summit later this week.

Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan have been a flashpoint between the two countries, drawing a sharp response from Beijing that has accused the U.S. of violating the “one-China principle,” and warned that attempts to “contain China” via Taipei were set to fail.

When asked about Washington’s longstanding support for Taiwan’s defense, Trump said Monday that, “I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi.” “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”

That comes after Beijing reportedly pressed the Trump administration to scale back its security commitments for the island.

Trump is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for talks covering a wide-ranging agenda, with Iran war, trade, rare earth export controls, and Taiwan among the central issues.

The Trump administration has reportedly not moved ahead with arms deliveries following a record $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan, authorized in December, ahead of the presidential summit.

“By aiding Taiwan’s independence through arms sales, the U.S. will only end up harming itself. Any attempt to use Taiwan to contain China is doomed to fail,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun had said in December.

Last Friday, Taiwanese lawmakers approved a special defense budget of $25 billion to buy missiles and other weapons from the U.S., well short of the $40 billion amount sought by the government to counter the increasingly aggressive Chinese military.

Any rhetorical softening from Trump, even an ambiguous one, would be “the most destabilizing outcome” of the summit, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“A tacit or explicit bargain in which Washington appears to concede a sphere of influence to Beijing over Taiwan” in exchange for concessions elsewhere could embolden China to take more assertive steps to erode Taiwan’s autonomy, Glaser said.

China claims the democratically governed island as its own territory — a claim that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party rejects.

Chinese officials have described Taiwan as “the biggest point of risk” in the bilateral relationship with the U.S., urging it to “keep its promise and make the right choices to open up new space for China-U.S. cooperation.”

Trump said he planned to again advocate for the Lai’s release. In February, a Hong Kong court sentenced Lai to 20 years in prison on charges of colluding with foreign forces.

“Jimmy Lai — he caused lots of turmoil for China. He tried to do the right thing. He wasn’t successful, went to jail, and people would like him out, and I’d like to see him out too,” Trump said on Monday. He had previously called for Lai’s release in a meeting with Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit in October last year.

Meanwhile, Beijing has made it clear that Lai “should be severely punished according to the law” while accusing foreign governments of interfering in Hong Kong’s judicial process.

Pro-democracy advocate Lai, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, was convicted in December for collusion with foreign forces, endangering national security, and conspiracy to publish seditious materials. The 78-year-old has been in detention for more than five years while serving a separate prison term on fraud charges.

The 20-year sentence was the longest handed out under the national security law introduced in 2020, surpassing the 10-year term given to activist Benny Tai, a former law professor who was convicted of conspiring to subvert state power, in November 2024.