John Bolton book reveals ‘Xi Jinping’s personal appeals to Donald Trump’ on Huawei and ZTE
- Former national security adviser says Chinese president suggested that he would ‘owe Trump a favour’ if sanctions on companies were eased
- Xi also lectured US leader on Treaty of Versailles humiliation at G20 talks, according to memoir
In talks on trade and Taiwan at the Group of 20 summit in the Japanese city of Osaka in 2019, Xi lectured Trump on the humiliation that China experienced as a result of the Treaty of Versailles a century earlier, according to the book. The treaty drafted in Paris in 1919 ended World War I but China refused to sign because it returned German-occupied Shandong in eastern China to Japanese control rather than Chinese rule.
The G20 discussion came a year after an 8.30pm phone call on May 8 between the leaders in which Xi brought up the issue of US Commerce Department restrictions on telecom equipment giant ZTE over its alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran, restrictions that Trump described as “very strong, even harsh”, according to the book.
“[Trump] said he had told [US Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross to work something out for China,” Bolton wrote. “Xi replied that if that were done, he would owe Trump a favour and Trump immediately responded he was doing this because of Xi.”
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On May 13, less than a week after that evening call, Trump tweeted that he and Xi were “working together to give … ZTE a way to get back into business, fast” as there were “too many jobs in China lost”. In July, the US lifted the crippling sanctions on the company.