The Taiwan trigger that could break Trump’s China truce

(Edited and refined by Grace Chong and Candice Chan, with the assistance of AI translation.)

Can the “constructive relationship of strategic stability” proposed at the China-US leaders’ summit be sustained? Chinese academics warned that the framework would collapse if Donald Trump’s administration resumes arms sales to Taiwan. American academics, meanwhile, argued that even if bilateral ties have stabilised for now, economic decoupling and the US political cycle will ultimately determine whether long-term stability in China-US relations can be maintained.

Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies and director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, said during a panel on “China-US Relations and International Stability” at the World Peace Forum on 4 July that the “constructive relationship of strategic stability” was not a concept proposed by China alone.

Rather, it evolved from the US proposal of “strategic stability”, with China adding the qualifier “constructive” to create a new framework. The term reflects both sides’ intention to maintain stable relations through to the end of Trump’s second term — at least until the end of 2028, and possibly beyond — thereby making China-US relations more predictable.

The consequence of playing the Taiwan card

However, responding to a question from moderator Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, Wu made clear that the framework would cease to exist if the Trump administration resumes arms sales to Taiwan.

Wu said that during the China-US leaders’ summit, Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he hoped to maintain strategic stability with China and preserve peace across the Taiwan Strait throughout his second term. Xi replied that if the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, there can be neither strategic stability nor peace across the Taiwan Strait.

Wu assessed that if the Trump administration announces a new round of arms sales to Taiwan after the midterm elections, China would respond with “very forceful” countermeasures — not only to express its strong dissatisfaction, but more importantly to make the US recognise that such actions would carry serious consequences. 

“So, this time, if [the US] is going to push the Taiwan issue,” he said, “China is going to fight very hard, making sure the US will regret playing that card.” 

Economic decoupling threatens stability 

Cliff Kupchan, chairman emeritus of Eurasia Group, argued that China-US relations have entered a period of relative stability, with both sides focused on establishing “guardrails” to prevent competition from spiralling out of control rather than proactively expanding cooperation. He described the current state of relations as one of “competitive coexistence”, or a “weak G2”.

However, he felt there is a “hollowing of US-China relations”, where each side seeks a calm environment, to decouple from the other, secure key supply chains and decrease interdependency. While China seeks to radically lower its dependence on the US in the complex of businesses involved in semiconductors and chip design tools, the US is trying to reverse key Chinese choke points on critical minerals, battery materials and pharmaceutical ingredients.

He said since 2016, bilateral trade in goods has fallen by 28%. If this decoupling continues over the next decade, it will erode the structural stability underpinning bilateral relations, make the two sides more vulnerable to misperceptions of accidents like the balloon affair in 2023, when a wayward Chinese hot air balloon caused a major structural crisis. The relationship will be dependent on the mutual chemistry between the two leaders.

He suggested that China and the US should compartmentalise critical issues such as arms control, nuclear weapons and pandemic prevention from strategic competition by establishing long-term mechanisms for cooperation. Otherwise, the current strategic stability could gradually deteriorate and become increasingly fragile.

Stability without consensus

Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a US think tank, said that since the second Trump administration, China-US relations have entered an unexpected period of stability. However, she noted that for the strategic community in the US, “there is a conviction that US policy and the second Trump administration has conceded too much space and too much leadership and too much credibility to China”.

She said, “Most recently, the two leaders have reached the consensus to establish a constructive relationship of strategic stability, but both sides do not have a shared consensus as to what exactly that means. China would like to focus on ‘constructive’, because its indicator is positive. But the US would rather focus on ‘strategic stability’, because that goes to the bottom line of bilateral relations — how to prevent conflict and how to manage bilateral conflicts as an aspect of bilateral relations.”

Sun revealed that Xi is expected to visit the US in September. However, according to her understanding, the two sides have yet to agree on what the deliverables are, and there are significant disagreements between the US and China on what constructive strategic stability would mean.

She pointed out that Washington is currently particularly keen to establish institutionalised military communication mechanisms, including regular exchanges between the two countries’ defence ministers and chiefs of staff. At present, China still takes around 72 hours to respond to US requests for military communication. The US has consistently sought to shorten this response time to 48 or even 36 hours, but no progress has been made. This means that should an unexpected incident occur in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, there could still be significant delays in crisis communications.

Asked whether the current strategic stability could be sustained, Sun said that the US midterm elections are unlikely to have much impact on Washington’s China policy, as foreign policy remains largely directed by the White House. The more significant development to watch, she said, is the 2028 presidential election. On the US side, a lot of people see this as Trump’s China policy, and does not represent the consensus of the strategic community. “By 2029, we potentially are going to see another relatively volatile period of disruption of US-China relations,” she said.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中国学者：美对台军售将终结中美“建设性战略稳定”框架”.

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