The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Chinese head of state, Xi Jinping, spoke by phone this Friday to talk about the situation of the short video platform TikTok, the illegal trafficking of fentanyl — a drug that wreaks havoc in North America—, trade relations and Taiwan, three days before the Republican’s inauguration on Capitol Hill.
The call, on the same day that the Supreme Court has upheld the law that forces the TikTok platform to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or be banned in the United States as of Sunday, has developed positively, as the two leaders have pointed out.
Trump has described the conversation as “very good” in a comment on his social network, Truth, while in an official statement the Chinese Government has indicated: “The two presidents hope for a good start to the Sino-American relationship during the new American presidency.” Xi also “expressed his willingness to guarantee greater progress in the bilateral relationship from a new beginning,” according to that text.
The conversation is the first phone call between the two since the Republican won the presidential elections on November 5. Trump had invited Xi to attend his swearing-in ceremony on Monday. Although the Chinese president will not be present, he has sent Vice President Han Zheng on his behalf, according to Chinese state television, in a gesture of goodwill between both governments.
During Trump’s first term, the relationship between Beijing and Washington, geopolitical adversaries but which maintain a trade relationship of more than half a trillion dollars annually, was plagued by tensions. The American opened a trade war with the Asian giant in 2018 with the imposition of tariffs that Xi’s government immediately returned and that have remained during Joe Biden’s mandate. The origins of the covid pandemic, whose first cases were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, were another major cause of friction.
Despite the good words between the two leaders this Friday, the relationship between the two giants faces significant difficulties. Trump’s candidate for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, defined China this week in his confirmation hearing as “the greatest threat” facing the United States in its international policy.
Trump has threatened to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese goods during his term. China sees Taiwan, the island with a democratic regime aligned with the United States and which Beijing considers part of its territory, as its great geopolitical priority and does not renounce violence for unification. The two countries compete in Asia Pacific, where Washington has woven a tight network of military alliances to respond to the rise of Beijing. The president-elect has suggested the possibility of taking control of the Panama Canal amid concerns that China, whose companies own two ports at both ends of the transoceanic access, could control it in the event of a conflict.
“It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, starting immediately. “We have addressed the balance of trade, fentanyl, TikTok and many other issues,” Trump wrote in his message on social media. “President Xi and I will do everything we can to make the world more peaceful and secure!”
For his part, Xi highlighted Beijing’s concern about Taiwan, an issue that “concerns China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The Chinese president “hopes that the American side will handle it prudently,” the official statement stated. The two leaders, this text notes, also addressed issues such as the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
