President Donald Trump says he will raise arms sales to Taiwan and the cases of two jailed activists when he meets Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping this week.
Trump made the comments to reporters in the White House Oval Office on Monday, ahead of the Beijing summit.
“I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” he said about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion.”
Trump confirmed he would again urge the release of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.
“Jimmy Lai—he caused lots of turmoil for China. He tried to do the right thing, he wasn’t successful, went to jail, and people would like him out, and I’d like to see him get out too,” Trump said.
He added that he would also raise the case of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri. “I’ll bring them both up,” the president told reporters. He described the pastor as “another gentleman ... with a beautiful daughter and son-in-law that would like to see him get out.”
The two leaders are scheduled to meet in Beijing on Thursday. Their talks are expected to cover trade, Iran, and other issues.
Taiwan is a major point of tension. The Chinese regime claims the democratically governed island as its territory, while Taiwan rejects this and maintains its own government. The United States maintains a strategic ambiguity with regard to Taiwan, but has long provided defensive arms to the island nation, a practice Beijing strongly opposes.
In December 2025, the United States authorized an arms package for Taiwan worth a record $11 billion. The Trump administration has held back on some deliveries ahead of the summit, according to reports.
Taiwan’s opposition-dominated parliament approved a $25 billion special defense budget on May 8, mainly to buy U.S. weapons, well below the $40 billion sought by the Taiwanese government.
Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper, received a 20-year prison sentence from a Hong Kong court on Feb. 9.
The 78-year-old British citizen was convicted of colluding with foreign forces and sedition under the controversial national security law Beijing imposed in the former British colony in 2020. He has been detained for more than five years.
Hong Kong and Chinese officials defend the sentence as lawful and reject foreign criticism as interference.
Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, founder of Beijing’s Zion Church, was detained on Oct. 10, 2025, in Guangxi province. Chinese authorities charged him with illegally using information networks—part of a broader clampdown on independent religious groups.
Trump previously raised Lai’s case with Xi during an October 2025 meeting.
The cases of Lai and Jin have drawn international attention from governments and human rights organizations concerned about political and religious freedoms in Hong Kong and mainland China.
