Why the Donald Trump-Xi Jinping Summit Can’t Come Soon Enough

Share this link on Facebook

Share this page on X (Twitter)

Share this link on LinkedIn

Share this page on Reddit

Email a link to this page

Continued clashes in the Middle East could seriously destabilize US-China relations and lead to confrontation in the Taiwan Strait.

The now-paused war in Iran obviously has huge implications for peace and stability in the Middle East and beyond. Among these, the impact of the conflict on the Taiwan issue, another potential tinderbox involving the United States (in this case, with China as the adversary), is of great importance.

A Sino-American war over Taiwan would be a catastrophic event, likely much greater than the war with Iran. And yet some observers argue that an active Iran War could tempt the Chinese to attack the island, due both to Washington’s alleged distraction from the Taiwan issue, and the fact that the Pentagon is transferring vital weapons systems intended to deter Beijing to the Middle East.

These concerns, along with an array of bilateral trade and technology differences, make it critical for President Donald Trump to hold a much-anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping sooner rather than later and stabilize the bilateral relationship. Unfortunately, the ongoing chaos in the Middle East has led to the cancellation and rescheduling of the Trump-Xi summit, with the date shifting from late March to mid-May. 

If the summit does eventually go forward, one major item on the agenda could be the highly contentious issue of military deployments across the Taiwan Strait, including US arms sales to Taipei. Prior to the Iran war, on February 16, Trump stated aboard Air Force One that he had held “a good conversation” with Chinese President Xi Jinping about US arms sales to the island. 

This remark sparked a mini-firestorm in Washington because it appears to violate what is now routinely presented as one of the pillars of the One China Policy: the so-called “Six Assurances” to Taiwan. Specifically, those assurances included a statement that the United States had not agreed to engage in prior consultation with Beijing on US arms sales. This suggests that Trump speaking with Xi about such sales appeared to violate an iron-clad policy. 

In reality, the Six Assurances have not been a solid pillar of US policy toward Taiwan. Originally issued in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan, the assurances were kept very low-key and rarely mentioned publicly by US officials. Only in recent years has Congress elevated the assurances through legislation to an official statement of US policy. As a result, the Six Assurances are now routinely listed alongside the three Sino-American joint communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) as constituting the US One China Policy. But equating these disparate policies conflates hard boundaries in US-China policy with guiding principles.

Despite its elevation in US policy statements, the assurance against consulting with Beijing over arms sales or other military deployments is not required by law or statute. As a matter of law, unlike the Taiwan Relations Act (a binding US domestic law) and the three communiques (executive agreements binding under international law, not domestic law), the Six Assurances are lesser executive assurances that are not legally binding. They are not treaty law, constitutional law, or operational mandates, though they do have political authority, as established by Congress and affirmed by past administrations. 

Moreover, even if the Six Assurances were legally binding, they do not necessarily forbid consulting with Beijing over US arms sales to Taiwan. The wording of the Six Assurances regarding arms sales (the United States “…has not agreed to consult with the PRC on arms sales to Taiwan”) does not refer to future actions by the government. 

America Is Headed for a Pyrrhic Victory in the Gulf

There is little doubt the United States can achieve its tactical objectives against Iran through military force—but what if doing so leads to strategic calamity elsewhere in the world?

How Sudan’s Economic Collapse Creates an Opening for China

China stands to gain increased influence in Sudan and Africa at large if it funds the country’s reconstruction. 

How the Ukraine and Iran Wars Became Intertwined

Russian and Iranian drone cooperation has pushed Ukraine and the Gulf States into closer defense technology partnerships.

In addition, although the TRA states that defense articles and services must be made available to Taiwan “solely upon [the] judgment [by the president and Congress] of the needs of Taiwan,” this does not prohibit consultations with Beijing. This is because the president and Congress could “judge” that Taiwan’s “needs” are best served by reaching a stabilizing agreement with Beijing concerning military deployments and sales.

The Six Assurances thus constitute non-mandatory policy guidance, albeit with strong congressional backing and presidential precedent—hence, any president has clear legal authority to negotiate with Beijing regarding reciprocal military restraints intended to reduce tensions and thereby stabilize the Taiwan Strait. These can include, for example, understandings regarding the timing, amount, and type of arms sales to Taiwan, in return for specific, verifiable reductions in, delays, or cancellations of Chinese weapons decisions most relevant to Taiwan, such as amphibious and short-range missile capabilities. 

Any such actions by a president would, under current conditions, almost certainly produce strong blowback from Congress and the military, possibly including an amendment to the TRA that explicitly precludes any type of talks or negotiations with Beijing regarding US arms sales to Taiwan. And Beijing could, of course, attempt to manipulate a president into ending arms sales entirely in return for a much lesser concession. 

But this is why any attempt to engage in such interactions should only occur within the context of a larger set of initiatives designed to stabilize not only the Taiwan issue but the overall Sino-American relationship; such a comprehensive approach, if producing positive results, would stand a decent chance of lowering opposition to an arms sale negotiation, something that could lower tensions over Taiwan.

Unfortunately, despite the urgent need for a bilateral summit to temporarily stabilize the US-China relationship, the Trump administration does not seem capable of carrying out such a challenging, long-term strategic recalibration. By many accounts, Trump’s China policy is made on the fly, based largely on his personal urges and impressions, and focused almost entirely on making bilateral trade and investment “deals” with his “friend” Xi.

There is no evidence of a coherent overall China strategy in place based on expert opinion from relevant agencies and the prudent weighing of alternative policy approaches. Trump’s current détente with Beijing is largely illusory, based on nothing but personal “goodwill” between the two leaders rather than enduring interests. And so, any stand-alone attempt to seriously negotiate significant Taiwan-related arms restrictions on both sides could easily end in disaster.

Thus, although the Six Assurances should not be treated as holy writ and placed alongside the Three Communiques and the TRA, their strong political backing in the US government and the challenges involved in dealing with Beijing on the acutely sensitive Taiwan issue suggest that any attempt to reinterpret or downplay them in order to stabilize US-China relations over Taiwan and defuse tensions in the Strait must wait for another, more competent administration to take office.

In the meantime, the adage for the Trump administration regarding Taiwan policy should be “do no harm.” That will be a difficult task, given the administration’s track record thus far on so many other policy issues, including the war in the Middle East.

About the Author: Michael D. Swaine

Michael D. Swaine is a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program. He worked for nearly 20 years as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, specializing in Chinese defense and foreign policy, US-China relations, and East Asian international relations. Before that, Swaine served as a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Swaine has authored and edited more than a dozen books and monographs and many articles, papers and opinion pieces, including Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy, Past, Present, and Future, with Ashley Tellis, (2000); Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, with Zhang Tuosheng(eds) (2006); America’s Challenge: Engaging a Rising China in the Twenty-First Century(2011); and A Restraint Approach to US-China Relations: Reversing the Slide Toward Crisis and Conflict(2023), with Andrew Bacevich.

America Is Headed for a Pyrrhic Victory in the Gulf

There is little doubt the United States can achieve its tactical objectives against Iran through military force—but what if doing so leads to strategic calamity elsewhere in the world?

How Sudan’s Economic Collapse Creates an Opening for China

China stands to gain increased influence in Sudan and Africa at large if it funds the country’s reconstruction. 

How the Ukraine and Iran Wars Became Intertwined

Russian and Iranian drone cooperation has pushed Ukraine and the Gulf States into closer defense technology partnerships.

© The National Interest