China’s government appears to be censoring U.S. President Donald Trump‘s recent claim that he warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping he would bomb Beijing if the East Asian power invaded Taiwan, according to Newsweek‘s analysis of search results.
The comment surfaced in audio obtained by CNN, reportedly recorded during last year’s presidential race, in which Trump told donors at a private event that he had similarly threatened a strike on Moscow if Russian President Vladimir Putin moved against Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. and the White House via email for comment.
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Why It Matters
Trump previously boasted of his “very good relationship” with his Chinese and Russian counterparts. Yet he has become increasingly frustrated by Putin’s refusal to end the nearly 3 1/2-year war with Ukraine—a conflict Trump promised to end within the first 100 days of his second term.
The audio was released just weeks after Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, warned that an invasion of Taiwan—which China claims as its territory—could be “imminent.”
While the U.S. is Taiwan’s top arms supplier, Washington maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would come to the self-ruled island’s defense if China attacked. Trump has continued this tradition, saying in February he would “never comment on that.”
What To Know
In the audio clip, which was shared with CNN by Washington Post journalist Isaac Arnsdorf and the Wall Street Journal‘s Josh Dawsey, Trump can be heard claiming to have confronted Putin, warning he’d “bomb the s***” out of Moscow if he attacked Ukraine.
“I said the same thing to [Xi]. I said, you know if you go into Taiwan I’m gonna bomb the s*** out of Beijing,” Trump added. “I said, I have no choice, I got to bomb you.”
He then suggested both leaders had only 10 percent faith he would follow through, but added, “and 10 percent is all you need.”
Chinese censors, who routinely scrub topics deemed sensitive to Beijing, appear to be suppressing news of Trump’s alleged threat
While posts featuring Trump’s warning to Putin quickly went viral—racking up more than 24 million views on the popular microblogging site Weibo within 12 hours on Wednesday—the China-related remarks have not been picked up by major political accounts or state media.
State-affiliated Beijing News and news commentary outlet Guancha featured the CNN-aired clip but cut it off after Trump’s remarks about Putin, omitting any mention of the China comments.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov appeared to reject that any such conversation between Putin and Trump had taken place—at least during the period between Trump’s first and second terms.
“After all, we are talking, as far as I understand, about the period when Trump was not yet the president of the United States,” he said.
Some in the U.S. have also cast doubt on the veracity of Trump’s account.
“I’ve come to view—this is maybe a well-honed citizen—what people say in front of donors, I won’t exactly take at face value, especially this,” Rahm Emanuel, former ambassador to Japan, told CNN.
What Happens Next
Trump has said he accepted Xi’s invitation to meet in China, which would be their first face-to-face meeting since the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019.
On Wednesday, Taiwan kicked off its largest annual series of military drills—the Han Kuang exercise—featuring recently acquired U.S. weapons such as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which Taipei hopes will give its defenders a boost against superior invading Chinese forces.
