Taiwanese officials and analysts say last week’s summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping produced no visible change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, but they warn the real test of what, if anything, Xi extracted from Trump will play out in the coming months.
Xi’s state visit to Washington drew intense scrutiny in Taipei, where officials watch every U.S.-China exchange for hints of shifting American commitment to the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own. On Saturday, a panel of scholars, a retired U.S. military officer and Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister gathered at the Institute for National Policy Research (INPR) in Taipei to dissect the meeting.
“Both of them got what they want and what they need,” said Kuo Yu-jen, INPR’s vice president and a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies, in an interview with Fox News Digital. He said Trump can tout economic gains from the negotiations while Xi returns home with the prestige of a high-profile Washington reception. Kuo dismissed suggestions that Trump had “sold out” Taiwan as overblown speculation.
As anticipated, Xi reportedly pushed Trump to say the United States opposes Taiwan independence. Washington has long preferred to say it does not support Taiwan independence — a subtle distinction that Trump reportedly maintained, to the relief of officials in Taipei.
Beijing’s broader goal
Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister François Wu told Fox News Digital that Beijing is after more than a change in wording. He said China wants the world to accept Taiwan as a purely domestic Chinese matter — a framing that, if it takes hold, would let Beijing argue other countries have no standing to respond to its actions toward the island.
“The so-called independence of Taiwan is just an issue made specifically by the Chinese government,” Wu said. “We just don’t need to declare any independence. We are a sovereign country.”
Wu noted Taiwan already has its own elected president and government, its own territory and its own currency. Ahead of Trump’s May visit to China, Wu had told Bloomberg his biggest fear was seeing Taiwan “put on the menu” of talks between Trump and Xi.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Xi urged Trump to hold the “correct position” opposing Taiwan independence. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry pushed back the same day — a public holiday on the island — reasserting its own view of its sovereignty.
No policy change announced
The White House’s summary of the Xi visit did not mention any shift in Taiwan policy. Instead it focused on more favorable tariff terms covering $30 billion in goods flowing each direction, a new communication channel for AI-related incidents, and U.S. concerns over rare earth and critical mineral supplies.
Still, the visit has left officials in Taipei wondering what Xi may have secured from Trump behind closed doors. Analysts at the forum said any private understanding over Taiwan would likely only become apparent over the coming months, as Washington decides on pending matters Beijing strongly opposes: additional arms sales to Taiwan, visits by senior U.S. officials, and a possible U.S. transit stop for Taiwan’s president. How Trump navigates those decisions will reveal how he is balancing relations with Beijing against support for Taipei.
Dong Li-wen, executive director of the government-funded Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies, said both leaders appear to be delaying hard decisions while conditions shift around them — a long-term strategy for Xi, she said, but only a temporary tactic for Trump. The two sides can keep talking and shelve unresolved issues, she said, but the underlying rivalry has not gone away.
An old dispute, an open question
The dispute over Taiwan’s status dates back nearly 80 years, to the end of China’s civil war in 1949, when the Republic of China government retreated to the island after losing to Mao Zedong’s Communists. Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, though the People’s Republic of China has never governed it for a single day.
Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive Party has described the island as an independent sovereign state under its existing constitution since a 1999 resolution, and every democratically elected Taiwanese president — from Lee Teng-hui in 1997 to current President William Lai Ching-te in 2024 — has said something similar in interviews with international media. Lai has repeated the frequent assertion that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to one another.
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Wu, defending that status quo — Taiwan functioning as a de facto independent state — remains Taipei’s goal. Analysts at the INPR forum said whether Xi managed to move U.S. policy at all will become clear through upcoming decisions on arms sales, with some predicting future weapons packages could be scaled back or broken into smaller pieces.
Ross Darrell Feingold, a political analyst and assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Department of Diplomacy and International Relations, told Fox News Digital that Taiwan’s election calendar — local elections this November, followed by presidential and legislative races in January 2028 — could also shape U.S. decision-making. “Although the U.S. is likely to back President Lai’s re-election; agreeing to arms sales, visits by Trump administration officials or Lai’s desired transit stop in the U.S. will need to be balanced against coming across as too blatantly interfering in Taiwan’s election, as well as the inevitable anger from China,” he said.
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