EDITORIAL: A meeting of contradictions

The second meeting this year between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Washington last week was one of grand diplomatic pageantry to showcase the leaders’ supposed personal rapport. However, structural competition and differences persist between the two superpowers.

The 48-hour summit was more symbolic than substantive. The post-summit fact sheets released by the two sides showed that the meeting mostly focused on bilateral trade and tariff agreements, but failed to reach substantive resolutions on many critical issues concerning the global landscape, such as the restrictions on rare earths and advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) risks, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Although Beijing intensively deployed cognitive warfare tactics to reiterate that Taiwan is a redline issue ahead of the summit, Taiwan was notably absent from the summit fact sheets. Trump said that the two sides did not spend much time on the nation because Xi was aware of his thoughts and stance, and the US Department of State and US Ambassador to China David Perdue, who also attended the meeting, assured that the US’ Taiwan policy remains unchanged.

The tour of the National Archives Museum also ran into sensitive territory, with the original plan for Xi’s tour to include the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, an accord that has long been used in support of the argument for Taiwan’s undetermined status, as it only stipulates that “Japan renounces all rights over Taiwan and Penghu” without specifying the disposition of Taiwan. The itinerary reportedly caused complaints from the Chinese delegation, which led to a request for the ad hoc removal of all sensitive documents and shortened Xi’s stay at the museum.

Xi was also showed the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, which should have demonstrated the fundamental difference between the US’ and China’s government systems, individual rights and national sovereignty. Yet, Xi was more concerned with the “Japan issue.”

During the meeting, Xi highlighted the history of the US-China alliance during World War II and said that “the Chinese and American people stood shoulder to shoulder in a fight against Japanese militarist aggressors,” ignoring the fact that it was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led Republic of China (ROC) — not the still-yet-to-be founded Chinese Communist Party-led People’s Republic of China — who had fought alongside the US.

Xi’s distortion of history aimed to erase the historical contribution of the ROC in Taiwan, but it also unveiled his anger with Japan for siding with Taiwan, especially after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statement last year of Japan’s defense role in a Taiwan contingency. It also highlighted Xi’s anxiety over Japan’s upgrading of defense forces to counter China’s military expansion, with the Xi administration repeatedly stigmatizing the Takaichi government as “neo-militarism.”

Ironically, immediately after Xi’s departure from the US, the White House posted an anti-communist video on social media claiming that “America will never become a communist country, but would defeat communism.”

All of these incidents indicate that, behind the elaborate diplomatic courtesy, the meeting between Trump and Xi was heavy on symbolism and light on major policy breakthroughs.

While Trump faces the upcoming US midterm elections, Xi has prioritized sweeping domestic threats to pave the way for his fourth term and total leadership ahead of the 21st National Congress of the Communist Party of China next year. Last month’s US-China summit was more of a form of “risk management,” depicting the two leaders as seeking “strategic stability,” to prevent miscalculations in escalating US-China competition.

Trump and Xi are to meet twice more — at the APEC leaders’ summit next month and at the G20 summit in December — setting a record of four meetings between the two leaders in one year. A new normal of “high-frequency communication, high-intensity competition” between the US and China is likely to be the trend.

At the same time, pro-China forces will intensify their cognitive warfare, spreading narratives such as “US skepticism” and “Taiwan abandonment” narratives, aiming to divide the US-led democratic alliance and benefit Beijing in acquiring international clout.

For Taiwan, maintaining strategic focus would be of paramount importance.

The nation needs to upgrade its asymmetric defense capabilities and consolidate its position in contributing to global prosperity, such as in high-tech supply chains and First Island Chain security.

Taiwan should also deepen multilateral cooperation with more like-minded countries to develop multilayered regional security networks, and secure international trust as well as the nation’s strategic high ground.