Jonathan Kearsley: Sky News Australia Correspondent on Trump's visit to China and meeting with Xi Jinping

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have agreed they want to build a stable relationship, but their competing priorities could get in the way. 

Trump claims Xi is offering to help in some way with America's war in Iran, without providing military assistance. 

Sky News Australia correspondent Jonathan Kearsley says Trump sees an opportunity for China to help. 

But Kearsley told Mike Hosking Trump doesn't want to ask for Xi's help with Iran, because Xi will want him to change his position on Taiwan in return. 

He says Trump's not going to want to budge on Taiwan. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Day one in Beijing seems to have gone well. The
door says she is going to be opened wide a
Taiwan looks as tough or as iggy as ever. Jonathan Keasley,
as this guy News Australia US, corresponded, he's in Beijing
and it's with us in the early hours. Jonathan, morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You, and a good morning to you, Mike and all
your listeners.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Day one went well.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, Day one did. On the surface, I mean this
was all about praise, pomp, pageantry from both sides. Really.
You had this lavish ceremony filled with Chinese protocol that
President She put on for Donald Trump as he arrived
at the Great Hall of the People, and that hospitality

(00:43):
extended right through to a lavish banquet held in that
same very venue that night, filled with a menu of
Beijing duck fruit and ice cream. As the pair essentially
heaped praise on each other, we heard Donald Trump talk
about President is a great leader, a good leader, and
President She using the language of Donald Trump himself by

(01:07):
insisting he was making America great again. This was a
very warm, on the surface meeting between these two leaders.
But you didn't have to scratch far to find where
the tensions actually lie because these are two leaders of
the most strategic adversaries you can find pretty much anywhere

(01:27):
in the world, the two biggest superpowers. An America's own
national defense strategy has warned about the significant challenges that
the US faces with China, and MARKA. Rubia, the Secretary
of State, was saying this just a matter of yesterday
and Taiwan became the real sort of flashpoints. I mean,
the language perhaps not surprising from President she warning that

(01:49):
if there is a mishandling of the issue, that it
could lead to clashes or conflict. He has said this before,
not just about you know, the United States, but others,
but particularly making this a direct message to the US
President in the room, it was fundamentally clear what he
was trying to do here. We are expecting to hear

(02:09):
from President Trump on the aspect of Taiwan. We're told
in the coming days he is going to publicly response
to that. That's according to his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessets.
So we still don't know exactly what President Trump said
in response, but I think what was interesting looking at
the readouts of these two meetings from the White House.
In both the Chinese side is that China didn't mention

(02:33):
Iran at all.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Washington did. Beijing mentioned Taiwan a lot, Washington didn't touch
on it. So still you have these two leaders with great, big,
vast differences. So on the surface, yes, everything might have
appeared friendly yesterday, the host being nice to the guest
and the guest being nice to the host. And now

(02:55):
there's an offer of a return visit to the White
House for September.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
But I think you'll still find that these are two strong,
power playing individuals who have vast differences in what they
want and how they're going to get.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
It nicely summarized. How much of this is preordained? When
Cook and Musk and business side of the equation get
back on Air Force one, how much is this already
signed up?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Oh? Look, I think that a lot of the work
had already gone into play. I mean they've been a
sort of you'd heard President Trump's language shift over the
course of the last little while. I mean you go
back to Trump administration one point, oh, and he was
talking about, you know, coronavirus is the China virus and
all this sort of stuff. But his language in the
last couple of weeks around, shifting thing was really what

(03:44):
of respected honor. I think there's obviously been drilled home
that you know, studies something that that China values. Now
clearly they're also looking at the issue of you know,
maybe China could use its strengthen it's relationship with the
rad to actually tell them, hey, guys, can you just
open up the straight up moves because that would actually

(04:05):
really help us. But at the same time, President Trump
didn't want to have to go cap in hand to
Hi Jiping and say I really need your help, because
then he's going to owe him something and what concession
is he going to give up. Well, he's not going
to want to budge on Taiwan. But that's precisely the
issue that Chi Jinping is going to want him to move.
So look, it's a game of chess between two guys

(04:28):
who are on the biggest stage in the world. And
I think what we saw yesterday was plenty of plaudits
and it was good to see two strategic warriors if
you like opponents of each other, essentially say look, it's
okay to have differences. We can try and get along.
And that's largely what the state banquet was about. Last night.

(04:51):
It was extraordinary to see these two leaders speak about
each other the way they did. But I think at
the same time both want things and they're trying to
work out how to get it from the other. So yes, fine,
everything went well yesterday, another meeting today, but this is
a longer term game for both of these.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Men, exactly, Jonathan, good to talk to. You appreciate getting
up early, Jonathan Keasley, who's the Sky News Australia US
correspondent in Beijing. So it's about quarter pasts, what three
in the morning, So we appreciate that. Mike, you do
know that Trump picked up Jensen Huang in Alaska. Yeah,
I do know that, but they weren't parked in Alaska
to pick up Jensen. They were picking up fuel and
Jensen had to get there because he was last minute invite.

(05:30):
But thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
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