BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping told his US counterpart Joe Biden on Friday that the Taiwan issue needs to be handled properly to avoid a negative impact on Sino-US relations, according to Chinese media.
China says Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province to be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary, is the most sensitive and important issue in its relations with the United States.
Washington, which is seeking Beijing’s help in restoring peace in Ukraine after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei but is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier.
“Some individuals in the United States are sending the wrong signals to pro-independence forces in Taiwan, and that’s very dangerous,” Xi told Biden on a video call.
“If the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, it will have a subversive impact on the relationship between the two countries.”
China sailed its aircraft carrier Shandong through the Taiwan Strait, shadowed by a US destroyer, on Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, just hours before the Chinese and US presidents were due to talk.
A White House statement said Biden reiterated in the call with Xi that US policy on Taiwan has not changed, and emphasized that Washington “continues to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo.”
China has over the past two years stepped up its military activity near the island to assert its sovereignty claims.
“(We) hope the US side will pay adequate attention” to the issue, Xi told Biden.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry expressed thanks to Biden for his “emphasis on maintaining the status quo of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, as well as his firm support for Taiwan’s security.”
It called on China to take concrete actions and condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Taiwan, which rejects China’s sovereignty claims, has joined in Western-led sanctions against Russia and sent humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees.
Xi also told Biden that the war in Ukraine must end as soon as possible, according to Chinese state media.
All parties should jointly support the Russia-Ukraine dialogue while the United States and NATO should also conduct talks with Russia to solve the “crux” of the Ukraine crisis, Xi said.
Chinese President says improper handling of Taiwan issues will hit China-US ties
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Chinese President says improper handling of Taiwan issues will hit China-US ties
- China sailed its aircraft carrier Shandong through the Taiwan Strait, shadowed by a US destroyer, on Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, just hours before the Chinese and US presidents were due to talk
Power outages hit Ukraine and Moldova as Kyiv struggles against the winter cold
- Outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova
- Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions
KYIV: Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities as well as neighboring Moldova on Saturday, officials said, amid a commitment from the Kremlin to US President Donald Trump to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine battles one of its bleakest winters in years.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova.
The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid,” triggering automatic protection systems, he said.
Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, in the center and northeast of the country respectively. The outage cut water supplies to the Ukrainian capital, officials said, while the city’s subway system was temporarily suspended because of low voltage on the network.
Moldova also experienced major power outages, including in the capital Chisinau, officials said.
“Due to the loss of power lines on the territory of Ukraine, the automatic protection system was triggered, which disconnected the electricity supply,” Moldova’s Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu said in a post on Facebook. “I encourage the population to stay calm until electricity is restored.”
Weaponizing winter
The large-scale outage followed weeks of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s already struggling energy grid, which have triggered long stretches of severe power shortages.
Moscow has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat, light and running water over the course of the war, in a strategy that Ukrainian officials describe as “weaponizing winter.”
While Russia has used similar tactics throughout the course of its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine, temperatures throughout this winter have fallen further than usual, bringing widespread hardship to civilians.
Forecasters say Ukraine will experience a brutally cold period stretching into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Trump said late Thursday that President Vladimir Putin had agreed to a temporary pause in targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian towns amid the extreme weather.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. Putin has “agreed to that,” he said, without elaborating on when the request to the Russian leader was made.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of any limited pause.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that Trump “made a personal request” to Putin to stop targeting Kyiv until Sunday “in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations.”
Talks are expected to take place between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials on Feb. 1 in Abu Dhabi. The teams previously met in late January in the first known time that officials from the Trump administration simultaneously met with negotiators from both Ukraine and Russia. However, it’s unclear many obstacles to peace remain. Disagreement over what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory, and Moscow’s demand for possession of territory it hasn’t captured, are a key issue holding up a peace deal, Zelensky said Thursday.
Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on social media Saturday that he was in Miami, where talks between Russian and US negotiators have previously taken place.
Russia struck Ukrainian energy assets in several regions on Thursday but there were no strikes on those facilities overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
In a post on social media, Zelensky also noted that Russia has turned its attention to targeting Ukrainian logistics networks, and that Russian drones and missiles hit residential areas of Ukraine overnight, as they have most nights during the war.
Trump has framed Putin’s acceptance of the pause in strikes as a concession. But Zelensky was skeptical as Russia’s invasion approaches its fourth anniversary on Feb. 24 with no sign that Moscow is willing to reach a peace settlement despite a US-led push to end the fighting.
“I do not believe that Russia wants to end the war. There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary,” Zelensky said Thursday.
