According to a senior U.S. official, Xi said he had heard reports from the U.S. that China is planning military action against Taiwan in 2027 or 2035, but that there was no such plan.
Xi also laid out the conditions under which force could be used, the official said.
While those conditions have not been disclosed, they likely include a formal declaration of independence by the Taiwanese, any attempts to introduce nuclear weapons into the Taiwan issue, Taiwan’s refusal to negotiate unification and any U.S. security guarantees for the self-governing island, according to Rene Aninao, managing partner of research intelligence firm CORBU.
Communist China has never ruled Taiwan -- a democracy of 24 million people -- but claims it as its territory. For decades, the U.S. has maintained a policy of "strategic ambiguity," under which China could not be sure if the U.S. would come to Taiwan's defense in a Chinese invasion.
China, for its part, has also said it would not rule out the use of force to unify Taiwan, but has not said outright that it wants to do so. Xi's conditions may have been an attempt at a departure from this guessing game.
According to a U.S. official who briefed reporters after the Biden-Xi summit at the Filoli estate, the Chinese president described Taiwan as "the biggest, most potentially dangerous issue in U.S.-China relations."
Xinhua News Agency described it as the "most sensitive" issue in relations.
These words hint at a fear that an escalation in tensions over Taiwan may quickly spin out of control and corner Xi into a position where he has to take action -- especially, at a time when he faces economic pressures at home.
Diana Fu, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and associate professor at the University of Toronto, said Xi is under heavy domestic pressure despite the confident facade state media tries to portray.
"At home, he's weighed down by malaise on multiple fronts: the sluggish economy, a worrying number of unemployed youth, lackluster consumer spending, and looming political instability as Taiwan heads toward elections in the new year," she said. "With so much to balance, Xi sought to assure audiences at home and abroad that despite their differences, he and Biden are quelling the waves battering the global seas. It is in the interest of both leaders to embrace political stability and pray that the markets will respond."
Such priorities are hinted at in Xi's statements. In the meeting with Biden, Xi said, "I am still of the view that major-country competition is not the prevailing trend of current times." It was a direct rebuke of the Biden administration's framing of the U.S.-China relationship as one of competition.
On Friday, state-run Xinhua published an article titled: "Key messages western media have missed in Xi-Biden summit," which noted that China has no intention to challenge the U.S. or to unseat it.
"Instead, we will be glad to see a confident, open, ever-growing and prosperous United States," it said quoting Xi, who called for the U.S., in return, to welcome a peaceful, stable and prosperous China.
These words suggest a rejection of decoupling and frustration toward the Biden administration's export controls aimed at halting the handover of advanced technology to China. In Thursday's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Xi noted that it is in nobody's interest to engage in "small yard, high fence" economics, a reference to U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan's strategy of establishing protections over the most crucial technologies.
At Biden's news conference after the meeting, the president was asked if the crises in Ukraine and Gaza altered his previous commitment to defend Taiwan from any Chinese military action.
Biden has said the U.S. would defend Taiwan on four different occasions. On Wednesday, he did not.
Furthermore, while noting that there is no change in the "One China" policy, under which Washington acknowledges Beijing's position that there is but one China, Biden did not mention the U.S. commitment to sell defensive arms to Taiwan, which is the other side of the coin of America's policy.
A promise not to make controversial statements on Taiwan may have been one of the conditions China laid out for Xi to travel to San Francisco. An official at Filoli said the decision to book the venue was only finalized two weeks before the meeting.
A pressing concern for Xi is the Taiwan election on Jan. 13, 2024.
"I don't think Xi Jinping has any intention of initiating a conflict with Taiwan. Xi wants Washington to adopt a more accommodating position on the Taiwan issue, including to work with Beijing to jointly contain the so-called the pro-independence forces within Taiwan in the case of a DPP victory," said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
On Thursday, a day after the meeting, dozens of local Chinese citizens wearing bright red hats flocked to the Filoli Estate and took photos of Xi's signature written in the guest book.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Chinese demonstrators opposed to Communist rule gathered at San Francisco International Airport carrying the Tibetan flag to send one last message to the departing president.