NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
President Trump revealed this week that he is keeping secret how the United States would respond to a Chinese attack on the island of Taiwan.
Asked what the U.S. military would do if the People’s Liberation Army conducted a military attack across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, Mr. Trump said: “You’ll find out if it happens. And he understands the answer to that.”
Mr. Trump, during an extensive interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” was referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The president has said the Chinese leader previously told him there will be no attempt to militarily annex Taiwan, which Beijing views as a breakaway province, during the Trump administration.
But the topic of Taiwan didn’t come up, the president said, in the meeting between the two leaders in South Korea last week.
“He never brought it up. People were a little surprised at that. He never brought it up, because he understands it, and he understands it very well,” Mr. Trump said.
The Chinese Communist Party under Mr. Xi has declared annexing Taiwan to be a core interest and something the Chinese leader has said will take place.
U.S. military leaders have said the PLA has been ordered to be ready to use force to take Taiwan by 2027.
In line with that directive, PLA warships and aircraft have been conducting extensive military operations daily around Taiwan in what the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command called “rehearsals” for an invasion.
Mr. Trump said Taiwan is an interesting case and that Mr. Xi understands what will happen if military operations against the democratically ruled island are carried out.
“He and I have spoken about it. But it was never even brought up during a two-and-a-half-hour meeting we had yesterday,” he said.
Asked by CBS’ Norah O’Donnell why the president does not declare publicly how the U.S. military would respond, Mr. Trump said: “I can’t give away my secrets. I don’t want to be one of these guys that tells you exactly what’s going happen if something happens. The other side knows. I’m not somebody that tells you everything because you’re asking me a question. But they understand what’s going happen. [Mr. Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences.”
In May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a speech in Singapore that the threat of a conflict with China is dire and imminent.
Hegseth gets call from Trump after blunt China talk
Mr. Hegseth issued a harsh warning Saturday about Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea during remarks to a meeting of Southeast Asian defense ministers.
The threatening activities include “intimidation, harassment and illegal activities occurring within your sovereign waters across the South China Sea,” he said at a meeting with defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Worse, the aggression has been increasing in recent months, he said.
The remarks prompted a phone call from Mr. Trump the same day and led Mr. Hegseth to dial back the criticism, apparently at the president’s urging, as the White House is in the midst of a concerted charm offensive aimed at improving trade and other relations with Beijing.
On his personal X account, Mr. Hegseth on Saturday stated: “I just spoke to President Trump, and we agree — the relationship between the United States and China has never been better.”
Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Xi in South Korea and Mr. Hegseth’s talks with Chinese Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun in Malaysia have led to a new, less confrontational tone, he said
“The admiral and I agree that peace, stability and good relations are the best path for our two great and strong countries. As President Trump said, his historic ‘G2 meeting’ set the tone for everlasting peace and success for the U.S. and China,” Mr. Hegseth said.
Mr. Hegseth said the War Department — the administration’s rechristening of the Defense Department that has yet to be formalized by Congress — will pursue a less confrontational approach under policies dubbed “peace through strength, mutual respect, and positive relations.”
Mr. Hegseth said he and Adm. Dong agreed to set up military-to-military channels “to deconflict and deescalate any problems that arise” and plan further meetings.
He ended the post with “God bless both China and the USA!”
During the ASEAN meeting, Mr. Hegseth criticized Chinese military attempts to coerce and threaten regional allies, including putting weapons on a disputed island that Beijing falsely declares to be a nature preserve.
“You don’t put [weapons] platforms on a nature preserve,” he said, calling the Chinese effort “yet another attempt to coerce new and advance territorial claims at your expense.”
Chinese provocations in the sea, he said, demonstrate a lack of respect for regional nations, “challenging and threatening territorial sovereignty.”
Trump: Russia, China are testing nukes
Mr. Trump declared recently the United States will resume nuclear testing in response to nuclear tests by Russia, China and North Korea.
On CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday, the president was asked about the testing announcement that came shortly before his meeting Oct. 30 with Mr. Xi.
Mr. Trump said he would like to see arms talks on “denuclearization” with both Russia and China, and he revealed that both countries have conducted nuclear tests despite a declared moratorium on testing.
First, the president said the United States has more nuclear arms than any nation. “Russia’s second. China’s a very distant third, but they’ll be even in five years. You know, they’re making them rapidly, and I think we should do something about denuclearization,” he said.
The topic of nuclear arms talks was raised with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Xi, he said.
Since he favors denuclearization, why the need for testing, the president was asked.
“Well, because you have to see how they work,” Mr. Trump said. He noted that Russia has announced it plans to conduct a nuclear test, and North Korea also is “testing constantly” and that other countries also are testing.
“We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he said.
Asked if the U.S. will begin conducting underground detonations, Mr. Trump said: “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”
Ms. O’Donnell then said only North Korea is conducting nuclear tests and that Russia and China were not testing.
“No, no, Russia’s testing nuclear weapons,” Mr. Trump said. “And China’s testing them, too. You just don’t know about it.”
Both Moscow and Beijing “don’t talk about” it, while the U.S. is an open society and “we talk about it,” he said.
“But they don’t go and tell you about it. … You don’t necessarily know where they’re testing. They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test.
“You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test, and we don’t test. We have to test.”
Moscow also made “a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were going to do certain forms of a different level of testing. But Russia tests, China does test, and we’re going to test, also,” Mr. Trump said.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe backed up the president on social media, saying “@realDonaldTrump is right.” The X post included a 2019 statement from then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley saying Russia was not adhering to a zero-testing nuclear moratorium. He also posted a Wall Street Journal headline from 2020 on a possible Chinese nuclear test.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, then said in a post on X: “After consultations with Director Ratcliffe and his team, they have confirmed to me that the CIA assesses that both Russia and China have conducted super-critical nuclear weapons tests in excess of the U.S. zero-yield standard. These tests are not historic and are part of their nuclear modernization programs.”
Vice Adm. Richard A. Correll, nominee to be the next Strategic Command commander, told a Senate hearing Oct. 30 that neither Russia nor China has conducted a nuclear “explosive” test.
Mr. Trump, Adm. Correll stated, has said U.S. testing would be equal to that of Beijing and Moscow.
Those tests are called “subcritical” nuclear tests — those that are fall short of a full-scale nuclear detonation.
• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.
