[Big read] US-China push-pull over Taiwan strengthens Beijing’s hand

With China’s Two Sessions concluded, international attention had been focused on a planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the end of the month. The visit is now being postponed as Trump intends to remain in the US to oversee the war in Iran.

Amid turbulent China-US relations and US-Israeli military action in Iran unsettling the global situation, Beijing has signalled a more assertive stance on Taiwan, pledging to “resolutely fight separatist forces aimed at ‘Taiwan independence’ and oppose external interference”.

This shift has heightened political speculation over the rescheduled summit, which could shape interactions among mainland China, the US and Taiwan in the months ahead.

On 8 March, during a Two Sessions press conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Trump’s potential visit requires careful preparation, a suitable environment and risk management. He signalled that both sides must coordinate timing, atmosphere and differences to avoid unexpected disruptions.

While economic and trade tensions have eased recently, the Taiwan issue remains the key point of disagreement that both sides must carefully manage to avoid unexpected developments.

At the end of February, The New York Times reported that US officials confirmed the Trump administration postponed a US$13 billion arms sale to Taiwan to avoid creating instability ahead of a potential Xi-Trump summit.

The unusual calm in the Taiwan Strait of late has also drawn attention. From late February until 6 March, mainland Chinese military aircraft had not entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone for over eight days, nor had they crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

Notwithstanding, Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), noted in an article that the recent pause in mainland Chinese military flights cannot be explained solely by winter weather, the Spring Festival or the Two Sessions, as past sessions have not seen a comparable drop in Taiwan Strait activity.

In his view, Beijing’s temporary easing of military pressure on Taiwan is more likely intended as some sort of political signal, and it cannot be ruled out that it aims to create a more stable environment ahead of the upcoming Xi-Trump summit, reducing the risk that sudden tensions might disrupt the summit.

On Monday, 16 March, however, Trump asked China to postpone his planned Beijing visit due to the Iran war, saying, “I think it’s important that I be here.” And between 6am Wednesday and 6am Thursday, Taiwan tracked 12 People’s Liberation Army aircraft — including five crossing the Taiwan Strait median line — nine naval vessels, and two official ships, breaking the recent calm. Taiwan responded with aircraft, naval vessels, and coastal missile systems.

There were also reports that Beijing is unhappy with the preparations for the Xi-Trump summit.

The South China Morning Post had reported that, for security and scheduling reasons, Trump’s late-March visit would be limited to Beijing. Reuters also noted that the continual trimming of his itinerary has lowered expectations for what the Xi-Trump summit might achieve.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Beijing is dissatisfied with what it sees as insufficient US preparation and inadequate communication ahead of the summit. There are concerns that this landmark meeting between the two leaders could end up being limited to trade and business deals, without addressing truly sensitive and crucial issues such as diplomacy and security.

The report also cited Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, as saying, “From a Chinese perspective this time, the No. 1 issue of our agenda would be Taiwan.”

In other words, even if the Trump administration hopes to frame the summit’s outcomes around purchases, investment, chip exports and market access, Taiwan remains a higher-priority core issue for Beijing.

On 30 October last year, Trump held a bilateral meeting with Xi in Busan, South Korea. At the time, many US media outlets speculated that Beijing, no longer satisfied with the US “one China” policy stance of merely not supporting Taiwan independence, would push Trump to explicitly oppose Taiwan independence. In the end, however, both sides unexpectedly avoided mentioning the Taiwan issue.

A month later, during a phone call with Trump, Xi explicitly reiterated China’s principled stance on the Taiwan issue, stressing that Taiwan’s return to China is an important part of the post-war international order. He added that the two countries, having once fought side by side against fascism and militarism, should now work together to safeguard the victories of World War II.

When both leaders spoke on the phone again in February, Xi reiterated that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations. He said, “Taiwan is China’s territory. China must safeguard its own sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will never allow Taiwan to be separated. The US must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.”

However, Chinese press releases indicate that during both calls, Trump only said the US “understands how important the Taiwan question is to China” and took China’s concerns seriously.

On how the Xi-Trump summit might address the Taiwan issue, Chang Wu-Ueh, director of the Tamkang University Centre for Cross-Strait Relations, told Lianhe Zaobao that what Beijing truly wants is not adding fancy language to documents, but pushing Washington to align its actions with its word in regard to Taiwan, or at the very least, “not to support Taiwan independence, even better if it can oppose Taiwan independence, and not send the wrong signals to pro-independence forces”.

He felt that during the summit, Beijing would certainly raise concrete issues such as “arms sales, President Lai Ching-te’s transits through the US, as well as interactions between high-level US-Taiwan officials, and whether the US executive and legislative branches would keep strengthening US-Taiwan ties”.

Chang stressed that there is no need to exaggerate the possibility of a “fourth communique” or political deal over Taiwan at this Xi-Trump meeting, because preparation time for the summit is limited while the differences between China and the US are deep — it is impossible to handle such highly sensitive political arrangements in such a short period of time.

Li Yihu, a National People’s Congress (NPC) deputy and member of the NPC Foreign Affairs Committee, also told the media during the Two Sessions that the mainland hopes the Taiwan issue can be resolved peacefully, but is firmly opposed to and will stop actions arising from Taiwan independence. “On this issue, the US must honour the commitments it originally made and stop accelerating the arming of Taiwan,” he said.

In other words, Beijing’s main concern at the Xi-Trump summit is whether Washington can restrain its support for Taiwan — through arms sales, transit stops, official exchanges and related legislation. Any outcomes are likely to show in managed rhetoric and restrained actions, rather than in concrete political deals.

However, Qi Dongtao, a senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute (EAI) of the National University of Singapore (NUS), told Lianhe Zaobao that even if Washington adjusted its wording — for example, tweaking the phrase “do not support Taiwan independence” to something firmer — this does not mean it will back down on substantive policies. Qi argued that this is because Taiwan remains extremely important to the US — for the first island chain, geopolitics, military posture and the economy. Washington is unlikely to make real concessions on arms sales or overall support for Taiwan, and Beijing is well aware of this.

Taiwan research institution Academia Sinica’s American Portrait project has long tracked changes in Taiwanese public trust in the US. Its survey after Trump returned to office in January 2025 showed that 33.4% of Taiwanese saw the US as trustworthy, the lowest on record. The latest poll, released on 11 March, shows a slight uptick to 34.2% — but it has not returned to pre-Trump levels. By comparison, although trust in mainland China remains low, it has risen from 11.7% in March 2025 to 17%.

Even as preparations for the Xi-Trump meeting have been underway, the Taiwanese government has stressed that communication with Washington remains smooth, while also highlighting that Taiwan’s significance lies not only in its liberal democratic values but also in its strategic and economic role, with world-class capabilities in semiconductors, advanced electronics, AI and renewable energy.

Recently, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen Yu‑chung, a political scientist by training, attended several seminars to clarify official policy, widely seen as an effort to “steady the ranks”.

At one seminar, he told Lianhe Zaobao that the Xi-Trump summit carries some risk for Taiwan but could also provide an opportunity for managing cross-strait tensions. “Of course, this depends on the content of the dialogue between Trump and Xi, and whether they can reach some degree of consensus,” he added.

He stressed that the Taiwanese government would do its utmost to communicate with the US, adding, “We are constantly expanding the common interests between Taiwan and the US, while also ensuring that the US clearly receives communications from the Taiwanese government. That is to say, if the US were to take actions on cross-strait issues that harm Taiwan, it would in effect also be harming its own interests.”

During this year’s Two Sessions, Beijing has also sent frequent signals on its stance on Taiwan. The government work report has upgraded its wording from “opposing” Taiwan independence to “resolutely fight” against it, while the draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan further stressed the need to firmly take the initiative and leadership in cross-strait relations, promote cross-strait economic cooperation and deepen exchanges.

On 6 March, Song Tao met the NPC’s Taiwan province delegation, highlighting the Taiwan-related section of the 15th Five-Year Plan. He said it aligns national reunification with rejuvenation, promotes cross-strait economic and people-to-people exchanges, and steadily builds conditions for reunification.

This suggests that the mainland side may already have the steps and timetable for reunification on the agenda.

The draft outline of the mainland’s 15th Five-Year Plan comprises 18 sections and 62 chapters. Among them, Chapter 60 is devoted specifically to cross-strait relations. In addition to reiterating the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan independence, the chapter places greater emphasis on “firmly grasping the leadership and initiative in cross-strait relations, enhancing the well-being of compatriots on both sides of the strait, and resolutely safeguarding the shared homeland of the Chinese nation”, as well as “jointly inheriting and promoting Chinese culture, and strengthening Taiwan compatriots’ sense of national identity, cultural identity, and identification with the state”.

The chapter’s two subsections focus respectively on promoting cross-strait economic co-operation and deepening cross-strait exchanges.

At a symposium on the Two Sessions on 6 March, Tzeng Wei-feng, associate research fellow with the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, said that since the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, mainland policy towards Taiwan has consistently emphasised “adhering to and implementing the Party’s overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan issue in the new era”. However, this time, both the government work report and the draft 15th Five-Year Plan have shifted to “deeply implementing” this strategy, indicating that it will now be translated into more concrete measures and policies.

He added that the draft plan makes recognition within Taiwanese society and economic integration key performance indicators. Its goal is to foster identification with mainland China among Taiwan’s grassroots, especially the youth, and to integrate Taiwanese businesses and young entrepreneurs into the mainland’s development trajectory — effectively embedding them so “once they come, they will not be able to leave.”

Meanwhile, during the mainland’s Two Sessions, Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai stirred cross-strait tensions when he travelled to Japan on 7 March to watch a World Baseball Classic game between Chinese Taipei and the Czech Republic, becoming the first sitting premier to visit Japan since the two sides severed diplomatic ties in 1972.

While the Japanese government was muted on the matter, stating that Cho had not met any Japanese officials, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taiwan Affairs Office still issued a series of stern criticisms.

NUS’s Qi told Lianhe Zaobao that since Cho had travelled to Japan, it was likely he had held secret meetings with officials from the Takaichi cabinet, and the mainland’s lack of strong countermeasures so far may be due to considerations surrounding a potential Xi-Trump meeting. Qi said, “Everyone is still trying to hold the situation together and prevent it from erupting.”

Following a possible Xi-Trump meeting, Kuomintang chair Cheng Li-wun also plans to visit the mainland in the first half of the year and meet Xi Jinping. This will be followed by Taiwan’s local elections in November, which will formally kick off the campaign season. All this suggests that after the Xi-Trump meeting, cross-strait relations will enter another period of heightened uncertainty.

National Chengchi University’s Tzeng believes this year’s elections will serve as a key indicator for Beijing to assess the effectiveness of its integration and identity-building policies in Taiwan. “They are now aiming to deepen and make things more substantive; they genuinely want to see results, and this year’s elections will be a touchstone,” he said.

He added that while cross-strait issues have not always dominated Taiwan’s local elections, if the mainland can bring them into the electoral arena as a manageable factor, “then to a certain extent, they will have achieved the desired integration effect.”

Amid these volatile factors, NUS’s Qi assesses that as long as a Xi-Trump meeting does not involve substantive exchanges on the Taiwan issue, the situation in the Taiwan Strait will broadly maintain its current trajectory and is unlikely to deteriorate sharply.

He noted that, in particular, Trump would want Beijing to honour any agreements reached after such a meeting, and the US would have little incentive to strongly provoke China on the Taiwan issue. Coupled with continued tensions in Iran and the Middle East, which will constrain US strategic resources and policy focus, “the US will not wish to see another high-intensity crisis emerge in the Asia-Pacific, especially in the Taiwan Strait.”

Similarly, Qi believes that if Beijing were to take excessively strong actions before Taiwan’s year-end local elections, it could instead help the Democratic Progressive Party consolidate its electoral support. As a result, all sides have incentives to exercise restraint, which in turn increases the likelihood of short-term stability across the Taiwan Strait.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “习特会面各有盘算 台湾议题各说各话”.

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