00:00U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping just wrapped up their first face-to-face
00:06meeting in six years.
00:08Is the outcome what you expected at all?
00:10I would say that the meeting is not as bad as it could have been.
00:13I think there was a lot of concern going into the meeting that A, Xi Jinping would press
00:18Trump on Taiwan, and there was some reporting to that effect in the weeks prior, that B,
00:25Xi Jinping would press Trump to allow the export of very powerful NVIDIA chips that China
00:30doesn't have access to.
00:33And so I think that the two kind of most dangerous scenarios did not come to pass.
00:38But what we know, the bottom line here, for me at least, is that Beijing saw that it has
00:45a big card that it can play against the United States, the rare earths card, that the United
00:50States doesn't really have a way in the short term of de-risking from China on rare earths,
00:57finding alternate suppliers, building a domestic supply chain here at home.
01:02And I think in China's view, its decision to hit back and hit back hard, escalate the trade
01:09war, pay dividends.
01:12So I think that if you're sitting in Beijing, if you're Xi Jinping, I think you're fairly
01:16happy with the outcome of this meeting.
01:18What do you make of Trump's comments that Taiwan didn't come up in his talks with Xi?
01:24I expected going into this meeting that both sides would prioritize a kind of ceasefire
01:30in the economic realm, which is exactly what we got.
01:34But I do think that Xi Jinping is going to have a much bigger opportunity to press Trump
01:39on Taiwan during his visit to Beijing, which he said is slated for April of next year.
01:45Now, in a recent article, you said that the U.S. could leverage these trade talks to gain
01:49some stability in the Taiwan Strait.
01:52Is there any precedent for that?
01:54In my view, the status quo or the way that cross-strait relations have evolved, Beijing
02:02views that as in its favor, right?
02:04I mean, the gray zone coercion continues to increase.
02:07The military activity around Taiwan continues to intensify.
02:12It doesn't really pay a price for that.
02:14Part of what I tried to do is push back against the notion that a U.S. declaration that it opposes
02:22Taiwan independence would be a good idea, or cutting security cooperation with Taiwan,
02:29or not advocating for Taiwan's participation in international organizations.
02:36I think those are all bad paths to go down.
02:38But I do think that we could potentially negotiate with the Chinese, you know, some kind of mutual
02:46military pullback.
02:47Now, the good thing about working in this realm would be that steps on both sides would be
02:52reversible.
02:53So if the Chinese don't meet their commitments, the United States could, you know, undo what
02:58it agreed to do.
02:59You know, whereas the kind of statements on Taiwan independence, once you've made those,
03:06that's a new baseline for U.S. policy.
03:08You can't really undo those.
03:10And finally, are there any takeaways that Taipei can derive from this meeting?
03:14If I was in Taipei, I wouldn't be reading too much into the meeting and breathing a sigh
03:20of relief and saying, OK, well, we're never going to come up in U.S.-China negotiations.
03:24And clearly, neither leader wants to prioritize talking about Taiwan.
03:28I think that's the wrong read.
03:30I think that it's mostly a product of a relatively short meeting and having much, much larger
03:40priorities that need to get hammered out between the between the leaders.
03:44So, you know, I think that Taipei might be breathing a sigh of relief right now.
03:49You know, it could have been much worse, but I wouldn't assume that nothing will happen
03:54for the rest of Trump's presidency.
03:56See you.
03:57See you next time.
