WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a high-stakes summit in Beijing on May 15. While the two leaders did not announce any clear resolutions to key issues, including Taiwan, they concluded their meeting by emphasizing stability in relations between the two major powers.
In Washington the same week, lawmakers and advocates said they hoped Trump would secure the release of political prisoners of China, including Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s prominent Catholic and pro-democracy campaigner, and Ezra Jin Mingri, founder and pastor of Zion Church, both cases that have provoked grave religious freedom concerns from U.S. officials.
Vice President JD Vance announced a new effort he said would combat Medicare fraud.
Taiwan remains key tension point in US-China relations after Trump visit
After bilateral meetings at Zhongnanhai, the headquarters for China’s ruling Communist Party, Trump told reporters that he and Xi “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to settle.”
But one area appeared to remain unsettled: U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
China considers Taiwan to be its territory, and has indicated it would be willing to take the area by force. The looming threat is a source of frequent friction between Beijing and Washington, due to U.S. support for the self-ruling democratically-controlled island with a capitalist economy.
Xi told Trump during the meeting that the issue could destabilize relations between the two countries, a Chinese government readout said.
Trump did not directly answer a question from a reporter about whether he would ultimately sign off on a $14 billion weapons deal with Taiwan amid Chinese objections.
“I’ll be making decisions,” Trump said. “But, you know, I think the last thing we need right now is a war that’s 9,500 miles away.”
Before his departure from the U.S. for the visit, religious freedom advocates urged Trump to seek the release of Chinese political prisoners during the trip. Trump told reporters at the White House that he planned to mention both Lai and Jin to Xi.
However, on his return trip to the U.S., Trump on May 15 told reporters that Lai’s case was a “tough one.”
“(Xi) said he’s gonna strongly consider the pastor,” Trump said, in apparent reference to Jin.
House passes resolution calling for the release of political prisoners in China
During Trump’s visit, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for the release of political prisoners of China, including Lai and Jin.
In remarks on the House floor, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a longtime Catholic lawmaker, said, “hundreds of innocent Americans languish in Chinese prisons today, including Nelson Wells of New Orleans and Dawn Michelle Hunt from Chicago.”
“This resolution is also about Pastor Ezra Jin, founder of Zion Church, detained and denied needed medical care,” Smith said. “It is about Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife Pang Yu, detained for peaceful religious leadership. It is about Dr. Gulshan Abbas, serving a 20-year sentence because her sister, Rushan Abbas, dared to tell Congress the truth about the CCP’s genocide against Uyghurs. The CCP imprisoned one sister to silence another. That is hostage-taking, plain and simple.”
“And this resolution is about Jimmy Lai, the courageous founder of Apple Daily, imprisoned because he defended freedom of the press, democracy, and the rule of law in Hong Kong,” Smith continued.
The resolution, he said, “reaffirms America’s commitment to defending political and religious freedom and advocating for those unjustly detained for exercising fundamental freedoms.”
Trump administration temporarily freezes new Medicare enrollments for new home healthcare, hospice providers
Vance told reporters at a May 13 press conference at the White House that the Trump administration will temporarily block new home health and hospice providers from enrolling in Medicare as a part of the vice president’s anti-fraud task force.
A freeze on new enrollees went into effect the same day, the Department of Health and Human Services said in an announcement posted on the Federal Register.
Officials indicated the freeze would last for at least six months.
“We’ve been hard at work over the last several months trying to make sure that we take care of the people’s money and try to make sure that the services that exist for the betterment of our fellow citizens, whether they’re low income kids who need access to food resources, whether they’re low income families who need access to medical benefits, that those programs are protected for the people who actually need them, that they don’t exist to enrich fraudsters, but they exist for the American people for whom Congress has said they’re entitled,” Vance said.
The president named Vance to an anti-fraud task force earlier this year, after federal investigators alleged there was widespread fraud in some Minnesota social services programs.
Noting Trump’s absence from Washington, Vance said, “I sometimes feel like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone,” referring to the main character, Kevin McCallister, in the movie franchise.
“I walk into the White House, it’s very quiet, and no one’s there, and it takes me a second to realize exactly what’s going on,” Vance said.
Trump makes a brief appearance in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
