Report: Xi Told Biden That China Plans to Reunify Taiwan

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Facts

• NBC News reported on Wednesday that China's Xi Jinping allegedly warned Pres. Joe Biden assertively that Beijing intends to take Taiwan — preferably in a peaceful manner — as they met last month during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.¹
• According to the two current and one former US official briefed on the meeting who spoke to the outlet, the Chinese leader further told Biden that US intelligence claims that he plans to reunify the island with mainland China in 2025 or 2027 are wrong, as no time frame has been set yet.²
• This report indicates that longstanding tensions over the de facto autonomous island, which Beijing claims as its own territory, came up in the summit intended to thaw relations between China and the US despite official readouts emphasizing their mutual understanding on issues such as climate change.³
• Though refraining from getting into the specifics of the private conversation between the two leaders, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Wednesday downplayed the matter to reporters, stressing that Xi's reported remarks aren't something 'different, or new.'⁴
• He added that the US will continue to adhere to its 'One China' policy, not recognizing Taiwan as an independent country. Last year, Biden pledged to deploy troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.⁵
• Xi argued at China's 2022 Communist Party Congress that the Taiwan issue must be resolved by 'the Chinese,' ideally through peaceful reunification but still reserving the option of taking all measures necessary.⁶

Sources: ¹Daily Caller, ²NBC, ³Business Insider, ⁴Abc news, ⁵New York Post and ⁶Daily Wire.

Narratives

• Republican narrative, as provided by PJ Media. It turns out that the alleged 'constructive and productive discussions' between China's strongman and Joe Biden in San Francisco weren't as reasonable as the White House had sought to describe. Actually, Xi Jinping threatened to invade Taiwan to complete his goal to annex the island on American soil and right in the face of the US president. Biden's foreign policy weakness is on full display.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by Responsible statecraft. Though China hawks have irresponsibly claimed that Xi's reported statement would amount to a declaration of war, the PRC leader has, in fact, lowered tensions as he asserted to Biden that Beijing has no plans to change the status quo of Taiwan anytime soon. China's willingness to reunify with Taiwan isn't something new at all — and this policy has underwritten decades of peace and regional stability.

Predictions