China will 'buy, buy, buy'published at 03:27 BST 15 May

03:27 BST 15 May

Laura Bicker
China correspondent, reporting from Beijing

Image source, Getty Images

Trump made a point of mentioning the US' trade deficit with China in his Fox interview and lowering it is one of his key aims for this trip.

To go home with a win, he will want China to buy more American goods.

It’s likely that Xi will pledge to buy more US soybeans and beef along with other US agricultural products, and that could keep farmers in Trump's heartlands a little happier.

"I think China will buy, buy, buy,” says Da Wei, an international relations professor from Tsinghua University. "President Trump can use that to say, look, I achieved a lot.”

One thing on China’s shopping list, however, may prove tricky for Trump: Beijing wants access to more high-end computer chips from the US.

China is racing to build more robots and make advances in AI and most of the world’s leading AI systems still rely on semiconductors from the US chip-making giant Nvidia.

Sales of Nvidia's chips to China have been restricted in recent years, and Xi will want all of those restrictions lifted.

We're now turning our attention back to Beijing, as Trump gets ready for his final day of meetings with Xi.

The US journalist pool has arrived at the Zhongnanhai compound, where top Chinese leaders reside. Trump and Xi due to meet for a tea session and lunch.

Wrapping up the interview, Trump, who calls the US and China the "G2" in a reference to the G20 group of nations, calls it a "historic summit" and says it will go down as a "very important moment" in history.

He highlights the significance of the respect they showed one other.

Now Hannity is asking Xi about Chinese nationals buying up "thousands and thousands of acres of farmland, ranch land and land near military installations" in the US.

Trump's response is brief: "They've had a lot of land for a long time," he says, adding that the Barack Obama administration "did nothing about it".

He goes on to address another question about Chinese students in American universities.

To reject all students "is a very insulting thing to say to a country", Trump says.

He adds that it's a "very, very fine line" with the issue of Chinese students in US schools.

The departure of hundreds of thousands of Chinese students from the US school system would lead to "bankruptcies at the lower end of good colleges", he says.

Trump's administration sparked concern around US campuses last year when it introduced stricter visa policies for around 300,000 Chinese nationals studying in the US. But it has since walked back on the policy, announcing that it would issue 600,000 Chinese student visas.

Trump insists once again that if the US did not strike Iran, "they would right now have a nuclear bomb".

Fox News' Hannity asked if it was that imminent.

"Well, I thought so," Trump says.

Iran was "very close" to having a nuclear weapon, he says.

"It all emanated from those three sites that we had, and we hit them good," Trump continues.

No other country would have been able to destroy the sites, Trump says, possibly with the exception of China.

Describing Xi as a "very smart person", Trump says they have a "good relationship".

"He has to respect somebody. He's no games," Trump says. "He's all about China."

Talking about China's economy, Trump says he wants to "open it up, it's massive". That would "make a lot of money and a lot of jobs for America."

"I've done it better than anybody else," he says, adding that the trade deficit with China is "way down from what it used to be"

Trump speaks about regime change in Iran, saying there appears to be a lot of internal turmoil.

"The third tier that we're dealing with now, I think they're actually much more reasonable and in many ways smarter than the first tier and the second tier, who are no longer with us," he says.

He reiterated his calls for Iran to agree to a deal with the US.

"I'm not going to be much more patient," he says. "They should make a deal. Any sane person would make a deal, but they might be crazy."

Now more on the Iran war, Trump says he told his Chinese counterparts that the US was actually "helping" them.

"I don't think China wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon either," Trump says.

The US president also addresses the subject that was trailed earlier, saying Xi has pledged not to provide Iran with military weapons.

"He said he's not gonna give military equipment. That's a big statement," he says.

"But at the same time, he said they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that," Trump says.

Asked if President Xi and China have the ability to influence the Iranians, Trump responds, saying China has agreed to buy oil from the US.

"We're going to start sending Chinese ships to Texas and to Louisiana and to Alaska," he says.

"It's the one thing they really need - energy," the president says. "We have unlimited energy."

The talks on trade went "better than last time", Trump says, adding they were "much bigger" than the 36 deals they signed the last time.

China is "going to be buying a lot of our farm product", such as soybeans, he says.

And what does China want from the US, Fox News? Hannity asks.

"Too many things to discuss, but a lot of things," was Trump's reply, without elaborating.

Image source, Fox News

In addition to his comments on military equipment, Trump says China wants the Strait of Hormuz open.

"He said they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that. He'd like to see Hormuz Strait open," Trump adds.

He also said that Xi had offered to help when it comes to making a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz.

"Anybody that buys that much oil has obviously got some kind of relationship with them, but he said 'I would love to be of help, if I can be of any help whatsoever.' He'd like to see the Hormuz Strait open," Trump said.

Trump boasts about building "the greatest military in the world".

"We proved that with Venezuela. We proved it with Iran, Iran's wiped out militarily," he says before adding, "It's just a question of time."

Trump has repeated that rhetoric previously, claiming the US has won the war with Iran.

Trump says Xi has agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets, describing the purchase as a "commitment".

"200 big ones, that's a lot of jobs," he says. "Boeing wanted 150, they got 200."

Earlier, on the sidelines of the US president's visit, US Treasury Secretary had hinted at the purchase, telling CNBC that he believed Beijing would soon announce a large order of Boeing aircraft.

Trump also talks about the delegation of business executives he brought along to Beijing, which includes Apple's Tim Cook, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX.

Trump describes them as the "biggest business leaders in the world".

"I didn't invite them. They all wanted to come and they're all here," he tells Fox News.

These people are here to "make deals" and "bring back jobs", he says.

"China is going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars with those people that were in that room today," Trump says.

Asked how his relationship with Xi has evolved, Trump says he thinks the Chinese leader is "a warm person".

"But he's all business. ... There's no games," Trump adds. "That's a good thing."

Trump went on to say that if Hollywood were to look for an actor to play Xi in a movie, "you couldn't find a guy like him".

He adds: "He's tall, very tall. And, especially for this country because they tend to be a little bit shorter."

Image source, Fox News

President Trump's pre-recorded interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, after his first meeting with Xi in Beijing, has just started airing. We'll bring you the latest lines from this interview.

To start, Trump says he had taken office at a time when China was taking advantage of the US. But now he has a great relationship with Xi, Trump tells Hannity.

Welcome back to our live coverage of Donald Trump's meetings with Xi Jinping in Beijing, which are expected to wrap up today.

In the last few hours, US media have reported that in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said that Xi had committed to withholding military equipment from Iran during talks between the two leaders on Thursday.

We have yet to hear from China on this.

The interview is about to air on US television - we will bring you the latest lines. Stay with us.

Image source, Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping has hosted US President Donald Trump and his delegation at a state banquet in Beijing.

The delegation features several business leaders and billionaires, including Tesla's Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nvidia head Jensen Huang.

Xi heralded the US-China relationship as the world's "most important", representing a collective population of 1.7 billion people. The Chinese president also said that "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" and "Make America great again" can go hand in hand.

In response, Trump called his visit a "great honour" and invited Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to visit the White House in September.

The banquet followed a high-stakes meeting between Trump and Xi, which lasted for about two hours. They later toured the Temple of Heaven.

On the agenda of today's talks was the future of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

The self-governed island is a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington, with China's foreign ministry warning of "clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy" if the situation isn't handled "properly".

We're ending our live coverage here, but you read more about this summit in our news article.

Misleading claims comparing Trump’s China arrival with Obama’s gain millions of viewspublished at 13:37 BST 14 May

13:37 BST 14 May

By Jake Horton

Misleading claims comparing US President Donald Trump’s red carpet arrival in Beijing this week for a state visit with a more low-key welcome for President Barack Obama when he visited China have gained millions of views online.

When Obama visited China “they didn’t even get stairs for him”, conservative US commentator Benny Johnson posted on X, adding: “Trump just got a red carpet hero’s welcome.” The post has had more than five million views.

Johnson attached a video of Obama disembarking from Air Force One’s built-in belly stairs when he arrived in Beijing in 2016.

However, that visit was for the G20 summit which China hosted that year - not a formal state visit like Trump’s, which often comes with more pomp and ceremony.

A better comparison would be Obama’s state visit to China in 2009. This featured a similar arrival ceremony to Trump’s - where the then-president descended from Air Force One using stairs from the main door and was welcomed by a military honour guard.

Lok Lee
BBC News Chinese, Taipei

Trump and Xi have apparently been discussing the issue of Taiwan - so what do the Taiwanese people make of this?

As we've reported earlier, some Taiwanese are worried that they are "on the menu" and that the US could change its position on Taiwan, despite repeated reassurances from Washington.

When we spoke to residents here in Taipei, one woman surnamed Hsieh told us that the US would lose “a bargaining chip” if Taiwan were to be given up – but only relying on the goodwill of the US or attaching itself to China would not be a solution for the island.

“Caught between two major powers, Taiwan must find its own way to survive," she added.

Another resident, a man surnamed Hu, said that increasing Taiwan’s military capabilities was “absolutely necessary”, regardless of how other countries view Taiwan or how much support they offer.