TAIPEI — A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would threaten US homeland interests and further embolden Beijing to compete with Washington on the international stage, President Lai Ching-te told a conservative US radio show and podcast in an interview.

The United States is Chinese-claimed Taiwan’s most important international backer, despite the absence of formal ties, but since President Donald J. Trump took office earlier this year, he has not announced any new arms sales to the island.

Mr. Trump could meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in South Korea later this month.

Mr. Lai was asked this week on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show — which is carried on more than 400 talk radio stations — what he would tell the US president if he were to meet him, and he said he would advise Mr. Trump to pay attention to Mr. Xi’s actions.

“I would advise him to pay particular attention to the fact that Xi Jinping is not only conducting increasingly large-scale military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, but is also expanding military forces in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” Mr. Lai said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the presidential office on Tuesday.

China’s increasing military activities further and further from its own shores are not only a challenge for Taiwan, Mr. Lai said.

“The challenge extends beyond merely annexing Taiwan. Once Taiwan is annexed, China will gain greater strength to compete with the United States on the international stage, undermining the rules-based international order,” he said.

“Ultimately, this will also impact US homeland interests. Therefore, I hope President Trump will continue to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”

China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Lai’s remarks.

Given the lack of formal ties, Taiwanese presidents do not speak directly to or meet US presidents.

Taiwan, along with major Western allies, has worked to address Washington’s concerns that it is not spending enough on its own defense — Mr. Lai has set a target of defense spending to reach 5% of gross domestic product by 2030.

“I will tell them that Taiwan is absolutely determined to safeguard its national security,” Mr. Lai told the show, when asked about how he would show the United States the island’s resolve to defend itself.

“When Taiwan protects itself, it is also committing to maintaining regional peace and stability,” he added.

The United States, which is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, has long stuck to a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” not making clear whether it would respond militarily to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Mr. Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future. China calls Mr. Lai a “separatist” and has repeatedly rebuffed his offers of talks. — Reuters

BENGALURU/HYDERABAD — Sidhi Sharma wanted to marry an Indian citizen with a high-flying job in the United States.

But the 19-year-old medical student from India’s northern Haryana state dropped the idea after seeing recent headlines about US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“I had always dreamed of settling in the US after marriage,” she said, without elaborating on her reasons. “Trump has shut the door for me.”

Tighter US immigration policies, particularly for the H-1B skilled-worker visa, are making families in India less inclined to marry their children to Indian citizens based in the United States for fear the potential partners might lose their job or immigration status, according to matchmakers, academics and prospective brides and grooms.

There is no official government data on marriages between Indian citizens living at home and overseas.

“Immigration policies may be written in Washington, but its ripple effects are seen at dinner tables of Indian families when they’re talking about marriages,” said Anuradha Gupta, the founder of bespoke matchmaking service ‘Vows For Eternity’.

Traditionally, marriages in India are family-driven decisions, with relatives and matchmaking agencies facilitating “arranged” matches. While marriages for love are gaining ground, especially in the cities, families often still play supportive roles.

FROM PRIZED PROSPECTS TO UNCERTAIN MATCHES
The US has the world’s largest Indian diaspora, according to Indian government data, including around 2.1 million Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), some of the most sought-after marriage prospects.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has launched a broad immigration crackdown, including efforts to limit legal pathways to residency. His overhaul of the H-1B visa marks the most prominent effort to reshape temporary work visas and hit Indians, who accounted for 71% of those visas last year, particularly hard.

For many Indians, marrying a compatriot living in the US was a ticket to financial security, and a better quality of life, while families welcomed the tradition of them sending money home and providing support to extended families.

About 75% of the H-1B visas issued to Indian citizens in 2024 were awarded to men, according to data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“Up until last year, there was a lot of demand and craze for NRI suitors and men settled abroad,” said Vanaja Rao, the managing director of the Vanaja Rao group of companies, popularly known as Vanaja Rao quick marriages.

“We’ve started to see a slowdown ever since Trump took over, and it intensified in the last six months. And of course, after the recent chaos and curbs on H-1B, there’s more panic,” said Rao, who has been in the business for nearly five decades.

In some cases, families are delaying weddings.

“There is a lot of uncertainty in terms of immigration in general and not just H-1B, it has only escalated in the past year,” said a 26-year-old Indian based in Atlanta, Georgia on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

He is aware of three weddings that have been delayed as a result of Trump’s policy changes, he said.

“Every time there has been speculation about stopping or tightening the restrictions around H-1B visas and skilled-worker migration, there has always been a corresponding impact on the marriage market,” said Harshita Yalamarty, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.

She pointed to Trump’s first administration when he also targeted H-1B visas and proposed spouses not be allowed to work. His successor, Joe Biden, later withdrew the policy.

Trump’s visa overhaul has also prompted many Indian students to rethink the ‘American Dream’. There were some 422,335 Indian students in the US in 2024, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.

VISA STATUS IS OFTEN A DEAL MAKER OR BREAKER
Some matchmakers are adapting to the new reality.

Premium matchmaking platform Knot.dating introduced a ‘US visa filter’ on its app as it expanded into India’s south. The company’s cofounder and CEO Jasveer Singh said many families there were particularly keen on NRIs.

“Families want to see the visa status of the suitor or match from abroad before proceeding further,” Singh said.

Since the feature launched in September, about 1,000 NRIs have signed up, with 60% on H-1B visas and the rest on green cards or other visas, Knot.dating’s Singh said. Of the 1,000 who signed up, 81% were men.

Knot.dating requires male users to earn at least 5 million rupees ($56,332.32) a year but has no income criteria for women.

That figure is “astronomically higher than what a fresh graduate or professional typically earns in India, that’s equivalent to many years’ worth of income here,” said KP Singh of overseas education consultancy IMFS.

“This US salary offers a level of financial security many here can only dream of.”

With the American Dream slipping out of reach, some Indian clients are looking more towards Canada, the UK, Europe, and the Middle East for potential matches, said Nikita Anand, founder of matchmaking agency Wedding Tales Matrimony.

“When families consider marriage, factors like mobility and security are deeply embedded in their decision-making. It’s about long-term stability, not just for themselves but for future generations as well,” Vows For Eternity’s Gupta said. — Reuters

CHINA is building oil reserve sites at a rapid clip as part of a campaign to boost crude stockpiles that increased in urgency after Russia’s Ukraine invasion upended global energy flows and has accelerated this year, according to public data, traders and industry experts.

State oil companies including Sinopec and CNOOC will add at least 169 million barrels of storage across 11 sites during 2025 and 2026, according to public sources including domestic news reports, government reports and company websites.

Of that, 37 million barrels of capacity have been built, the sources show. Once completed, the new sites will be able to store two weeks of China’s net crude imports, according to Reuters calculations based on Chinese trade data, a significant volume as China is by far the world’s biggest oil importer.

Beijing’s reserve-building — S&P Global Commodity Insight last month estimated China had stockpiled an average of 530,000 barrels per day thus far in 2025 — is soaking up surplus global supply and supporting prices under pressure as the OPEC+ producers group winds down production cuts. Traders and consultancies say they expect the stockpiling, fueled by prices recently below $70 per barrel, to continue at least through the first quarter of 2026.

China’s heavy dependence on foreign oil, carried mainly by tankers, is a strategic vulnerability that Beijing is seeking to mitigate through storage, diversification of import sources and maintaining domestic production. China is also rapidly developing renewable energy and electrifying its vehicle fleet, with both gasoline and diesel demand declining and overall oil consumption likely to peak in 2027.

Its reserve site construction is accelerating. The new additions planned for this year and next, based on Reuters research, nearly match the 180-190 million barrels of capacity that analytics firms Vortexa and Kpler, respectively, estimate were added in the previous five years.

China’s secrecy about its reserves means the list may not be comprehensive and the status of projects could change.

Beijing built its first strategic reserve site in 2006, but its recent push stems from the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a wave of disruptive sanctions on Moscow and highlighted the vulnerability of Beijing’s oil imports, traders and analysts said.

Since late 2023, Beijing has quietly issued mandates to state-owned companies to stockpile oil, traders and analysts say. London-based Energy Aspects in July cited a mandate calling for 140 million barrels to be purchased for strategic reserves, with deliveries through March 2026.

“China’s stock building strategy has always been to have sufficient energy security for the nation that is highly dependent on crude imports,” said June Goh, Singapore-based analyst at Sparta Commodities.

“The agenda has become more urgent this year with heightened geopolitical risks surrounding Russia and Iran,” she said, citing potential conflict-related disruptions.

China is the top crude customer for both countries.

BLURRED LINES
China’s government stockpiles comprise dedicated Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) sites built before 2019, and more recent storage known as “commercial reserves.”

Both serve as emergency reserves, experts say, with the latter operated with more flexibility under the oversight of the national reserve bureau, which allows state refiners to rotate stockpiles to meet commercial needs.

A law passed in January codified the integration by including both government and commercial stocks in a single definition of national reserves, saying companies should maintain government-supervised “social responsibility” reserves.

All the reserves are managed by dedicated divisions under state oil firms that are supervised by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, which holds title to the stockpiles, according to two industry sources who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.

In inland Shaanxi province, two sites under construction with combined capacity of 11 million barrels were described online by the provincial government as part of state reserves, according to local state media reports.

Another site, a 20-million-barrel Sinopec facility under construction on Hainan island, was described in February by a local state media outlet both as commercial storage and a contribution to national reserve capacity.

The National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, Sinopec and CNOOC did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

MORE TO COME
Beijing’s last public update on its stockpiling capacity dates to 2017, when the National Bureau of Statistics said China had built nine storage bases with capacity totaling 238 million barrels.

In August, the semi-official China Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry Federation was cited in state media as saying state reserve storage capacity should grow to more than 1 billion barrels, equivalent to three months of net imports, without giving a timeline.

That would be in line with the International Energy Agency’s requirement that members hold stocks of at least 90 days of net imports, although China is not a member.

Two trade sources said Beijing aims to grow its stockpile to cover six months of imports, or roughly 2 billion barrels.

By comparison, the US held 404 million barrels of crude in its strategic petroleum reserve at the end of August, although the country is the world’s biggest oil producer and since 2019 has been a net exporter.

Consultancy Kpler pegged China’s total onshore national reserves and commercial stocks, including holdings by state and private firms, at 799 million barrels by early September, 109 million barrels above levels at the start of 2023.

Vortexa estimated state-company controlled stockpiles, including refinery stocks, at 735 million barrels — a 73-million barrel-build over the same period.

Not included in those private estimates is oil stored at four underground SPR sites that Reuters reported in 2021 have capacity to hold 110 million barrels. — Reuters