Trans-Pacific View | Diplomacy | East Asia

China’s Taiwan Calculus Ahead of the Trump-Xi Summit

Beijing is not seeking a breakthrough on Taiwan at the Trump-Xi summit, but rather incremental gains that could gradually weaken Taiwan-U.S. ties.

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae International Airport terminal in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Cheng Li-wun, chairperson of Taiwan’s main opposition party, met in Beijing last Friday, the first meeting of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Kuomintang (KMT) leaders in a decade. The meeting took place on April 10, 2026 – the 47th anniversary of the U.S. signing of the Taiwan Relations Act. This timing reflects Beijing’s broader effort to shape the agenda of the upcoming summit between Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump.

At the summit, Beijing is expected to underscore that U.S. support of Taiwan will disrupt China-U.S. “strategic stability,” while cross-strait peace can be achieved without U.S. involvement. A grand deal over Taiwan or a fundamental shift of Washington’s One China policy is unlikely and would be difficult to sustain. However, Trump’s incoherent personal language over Taiwan or a delay of Taiwan-U.S. arms sales would constitute gains for Beijing.

Beijing’s main goal for the Trump-Xi summit would be to sustain the fragile stability in China-U.S. relations after both countries agreed on a truce in their trade war. Washington is so far interested in keeping the trade truce and has signaled that Trump will not seek confrontation during the summit. 

However, China hopes that this cooperative tone will extend beyond trade. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed in March that 2026 would be a “big year” for Sino-American relations and that “unnecessary disruptions” should be cleared. This partly explains why Beijing has been avoiding publicly denouncing the U.S. attack on Iran. Trump’s ambivalence over Taiwan presents an opening for Chinese officials to persuade the U.S. president that further U.S. support for Taiwan will disrupt their broader relationship. 

To support this goal, Beijing is working to reinforce the framing that matters related to Taiwan are “up to” China and not an international issue open to U.S. “interference.” During the CCP-KMT leader meeting, Xi underscored that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same Chinese “family” and the future of cross-strait relations should be “held firm within Chinese grasp.” Cheng echoed Xi’s rhetoric, linking cross-strait peace with the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” 

Xi agreed to meet with the unpopular KMT leader because Cheng is one of the few Taiwanese politicians willing to openly self-identify as Chinese. Looking ahead, Beijing will try to convince Trump that peace in the Taiwan Strait can be managed by the “Chinese” across the Taiwan Strait; therefore, U.S. involvement is unnecessary. 

Although Beijing would welcome Trump giving up Taiwan, a China-U.S. grand deal about Taiwan or changing U.S. rhetorical policy to publicly “oppose Taiwanese independence” is difficult and unsustainable. Part of Washington’s long-pursued One China policy has been to remain agnostic about Taiwan’s political status. Having Trump publicly oppose Taiwanese independence would challenge this tenet of the One China policy and erode Washington’s political basis for supporting Taiwan’s de facto independence. Beijing is aware that drastically changing the U.S. One China policy would face strong opposition within the United States and could be easily reversed, whether by Trump himself or by a future president. 

Constraints within the U.S. system further limit the feasibility of any major shift in the One China policy. Congress, which has long been more vocally supportive of Taiwan than the White House, will likely pass legislation to check any unilateral changes made by Trump. Trump’s earlier remarks about negotiating U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Beijing have already prompted U.S. legislative efforts to codify the Reagan-era Six Assurances to Taiwan into law. The Six Assurances include Washington promising that it would not consult Beijing on arms sales to Taipei or........

© The Diplomat