China tells Washington a Taiwan arms sale would cancel the September summit

China has told the United States that it will cancel a planned leaders' meeting later this month if Washington approves any new arms sale to Taiwan before the visit, multiple people familiar with the talks told Kyodo News on Saturday, 12 September. President Donald Trump has said he will host Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan at the White House on 24 September and hold a state dinner. Beijing has not issued a matching public confirmation of the trip.

The sources said that as preparations for the visit advanced, China restated that Taiwan is a "red line" in the relationship. In May, when the two men met in Beijing, Xi called Taiwan the most important issue between the countries and warned that mishandling it could produce a collision. Trump later said in a television interview that arms sales to Taiwan could be a "very good negotiating chip" with China. That line is now the point of the threat.

The last package and the next one

In December 2025 the Trump administration announced an $11 billion package for Taiwan, the largest single U.S. sale on record to the island. China protested. Under the Taiwan Relations Act the United States is obliged to provide Taipei with the means to maintain a sufficient self-defence. The Act does not require any particular package on any particular date. Timing, in this case, is the leverage.

Trump wants a visible diplomatic result before the November midterm elections. The September meeting was also meant to cover tariffs and the war around Iran. China has kept working-level contact on those files even while drawing the Taiwan line. The threat reported by Kyodo is specific: any new approval before the summit, not the December 2025 sale already announced.

Taipei Times and the Straits Times carried the same account on 12 and 13 September. No official in Washington or Beijing has confirmed the message on the record. That is typical for this kind of channel. It is also why the report matters. If the White House is weighing a second package, the cost of signing it this month is now the dinner itself.

What sits on the table in late September

Xi has been in New Delhi for the BRICS summit, his first visit to India in seven years. He is due in the United States less than two weeks later if the trip holds. The calendar is tight. A cancelled summit would leave tariffs, export controls and the Iran file without a leaders' session before the midterms.

Taiwan will read the next U.S. decision as a test of whether the December package was an exception or a pattern. China will read it as a test of whether Trump treats the island as a bargaining chip or as a commitment under the Relations Act. Those two readings cannot both be satisfied in a single signature.

The 24 September date is still on Trump's public calendar. Kyodo's sources say it comes off that calendar the moment a new sale is approved. The people who would have to make that choice have through the middle of the month to decide which meeting they want more.