File photo of Taiwan’s Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems. Photo Credit: ROC MND
July 26, 2026
Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
By Jacques deLisle
Key Takeaways:
Erosion of Clear Strategic Ambiguity: Recent Trump-Xi meetings and Trump’s public comments have introduced uncertainty into longstanding US “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan—ranging from inconsistent messaging on arms sales and defense commitments to suggestions that Taiwan could be seen as provoking conflict—without producing a coherent new strategy.
Ambiguities from Taiwan’s Politics: High-profile statements and visits by Kuomintang (KMT) figures, particularly party chair Cheng Li-wun, have raised questions about potential shifts toward more accommodating cross-Strait positions, while competing candidates and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party continue to emphasize continuity, defense needs, and the status quo preferred by most Taiwanese voters.
Continuity Likely Despite Noise: Structural factors—bipartisan congressional support, working-level policy inertia, limited time for major deliverables before further Trump-Xi meetings, and Taiwan’s domestic electoral realities—favor policy continuity over radical change; over-interpreting transient rhetoric risks miscalculations by Beijing that could heighten cross-Strait tensions.
(FPRI) — A series of high-level meetings between leaders and visits by prominent politicians from the United States, China, and Taiwan has roiled chronically fraught issues of Taiwan policy and cross-Strait relations. The May summit between President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing and visits by three potential presidential nominees from Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT)–party chair Cheng Li-wun to Beijing in April and to the United States in June, Taiwan’s parliamentary speaker Han Kuo-yu to the US in June, and Taichung mayor Lu Shiow-yen to the US in March—produced confusion and doubts about policy continuity. Adding to the uncertainty is the prospect of up to three more Trump-Xi meetings before the end of 2026. All these events are contributing to an unstrategic ambiguity in US commitments to Taiwan and in US-Taiwan-China relations more broadly. With greater stability and clarity in US and Taiwanese policy unlikely in the near term, the best course for addressing the resulting challenges is to avoid reading too much into the prospects for major change in transient developments.
The Trump-Xi summit did not produce the most radical of the imagined outcomes that were on Xi’s apparent wish list. Trump did not shift the US declaratory policy from “not supporting” to “opposing” Taiwan independence. There was no public statement that the United States would commit to curtailing arms sales to Taiwan. Trump and Xi did not reach a so-called grand bargain that would exchange longstanding US commitments to Taiwan for China’s concessions on the trade issues that are consistently high on Trump’s agenda.
Still, much of what was said was uncertain or unsettling. The Trump-Xi meeting was the latest in a series of bilaterals that failed to produce a formal joint statement. In contrast to official People’s Republic of China (PRC) statements, the initial US readout and final fact sheet did not acknowledge that Taiwan was discussed. The US president offered inconsistent public statements during his time in Beijing, while his response to reporters outside the Great Hall of the People suggested that Taiwan was not much addressed. In this context, concerns focused on what Trump might have conceded to Xi behind closed doors. On Air Force One en route back to Washington, Trump indicated that he had talked with Xi at length about Taiwan, including about US arms sales. He also said he had listened to Xi’s concerns about Taiwan but “didn’t make a comment on it.”
Other comments from Trump, however, seemed to signal significant policy changes. Depending on the (undisclosed) details, Trump’s discussion with Xi about arms sales could have set aside a provision in the Six Assurances, which states that the United States had not agreed to consult with Beijing on such matters. Trump seemingly dismissed the Reagan-era policy, long regarded as one of the five pillars of US cross-Strait policy along with the Taiwan Relations Act and the three US-PRC joint communiqués, and told reporters it was “a long way” in the past.
Trump also more broadly cast doubt on future arms sales. During a Fox News interview in Beijing, he declared that he was “holding . . . in abeyance” a decision on whether to move forward with the already authorized $14 billion arms package that he had earlier delayed in a perceived effort to assure a smooth summit. The president said that he saw the arms package as a “good negotiating chip” with China, that he had “not approved [the sale] yet,” that he would “see what happens,” and that he might or might not let the sale go forward. Trump also said he planned to have a conversation with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, much to the consternation of Beijing.
Trump also departed from traditional formulations associated with a US policy of “strategic ambiguity.” When asked whether the United States would defend Taiwan if Beijing attempted unification by force, Trump’s responded, “There’s only one person that knows that, you know, it is me. . . . [Xi] asked me if I’d defend them, I said I don’t talk about that.” This seemed to cast new doubt on longstanding US positions that have been taken as entailing some level of commitment to intervene, at least in the event of an invasion or similar scenario in which Washington judged Beijing, and not Taipei, to be at fault. Trump’s comment sharply contrasted with President Joseph Biden’s statements that had tested the bounds of established US policy in the opposite direction, pledging to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a PRC attack.
Trump also suggested that he could well view a crisis in cross-Strat relations as Taiwan’s responsibility and, thus, as not satisfying the implicit precondition of US intervention. Trump complained in his Fox News interview that ”they”—meaning Taiwan under Lai—“are going independent because they want to get into a war…and they figure they have a United States behind them…. I’m not looking to have somebody go independent…and…we are supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that.”
In a move familiar from prior instances of US presidents or senior officials departing from the established lexicon of US Taiwan policy, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio rebutted notions that there had been any change in policy toward Taiwan and denied any incipient acquiescence in Beijing’s assertion of a right to use force to take Taiwan, declaring that efforts at coerced unification would be a “terrible mistake.” Similarly, in his Fox News interview in Beijing, Trump asserted that “nothing has changed” in US Taiwan policy and that the Trump-Xi meetings should have a “neutral” effect on the Taiwanese people’s sense of security. This echoed the earlier US framing of the summit as focused on maintainingstability in the recently troubled US-China relationship.
Such assurances were not entirely effective. They came against the backdrop of a history of unsettling or seemingly conflicting Trump statements and positions about Taiwan: that Xi had pledged not to—and would not dare to—attack Taiwan during Trump’s presidency; calls for Taiwan to spend more on its own defense (including increased purchases of US arms); condemning Taiwan for “stealing” the US chip industry; and expansive promises or approvals of weapons sales to Taiwan despite perceived erosion of US support for Taiwan during Trump’s second term.
Taiwan’s Own Ambiguities
Lack of clarity has come from the Taiwan side as well. Recent proclamations during the travels of leading political figures, especially KMT chair Cheng, have been particularly ambiguous. During her Beijing meeting with Xi, Cheng made public statements that seemed to contemplate consequential changes in cross-Strait policies. She marginalized the Ma Ying-jeou–era characterization of the 1992 Consensus as “One China, respective interpretations” and accepted a Xi-adjacent framing of “upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwanese independence.” Other phrasings from Cheng also resonated with Xi and PRC rhetoric, including calls to “build a win-win and prosperous cross-Strait ‘community of shared future’” and to pursue “the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’.” Although Cheng articulated the latter point as “a shared rejuvenation for people on both sides of the Strait,” Xi, as well the PRC State Council’s 2022 White Paper on Taiwan, has insisted that national rejuvenation is predicated upon unification of Taiwan. Cheng also expressed the hope that Chinese Communist Party and KMT efforts could lead to the Taiwan Strait not becoming “a chessboard for external interference”—an aspiration that echoed China’s official and often-stated opposition to US interference in the “internal” Chinese affair of Taiwan.
During her US visit in June, Cheng continued to depart from conventional statements on cross-Strait relations and US policy. She reaffirmed her previously stated positions on “One China.” Although deflecting concerns about unification as an issue for the distant future, she asserted that “innovation and creativity” or another in the KMT’s history of achieving “miracles” would offer a path for addressing or resolving such issues.
Characterizing Trump’s comments as opposing Taiwan independence, she welcomed his position as a “relatively positive first step” toward reducing cross-Strait tensions. Throughout her US tour, Cheng seemingly supported Taiwan moving toward equidistance between the United States and China. She also called for making the first island chain—from Japan through Taiwan to Southeast Asia—a “chain of peace and prosperity,” in contrast to the US view of it as a vital perimeter for defense against China.
Like Trump and senior US officials, Cheng and her partisans sought to assuage the resulting concerns with claims of policy continuity. In Beijing, Cheng cast her agenda as a return to the halcyon days of the Ma Ying-jeou era in cross-Strait relations, claiming to affirm the 1992 Consensus and its acceptance of “One China,” endorsing the “peaceful development” of cross-Strait relations, and praising the twenty-three cross-Strait agreements achieved between 2008 and 2016. In the US, she asserted that the common membership of people on both sides of the Strait in “the great Chinese nation” meant that there “will be great space for us to maintain the status quo.”
Cheng characterized her US meetings as reassuring Washington that the KMT was not against increases in defense spending, including on US arms. She said she shared the US—and Trump’s—views on the importance of peace and stability in the Strait. At the same time, Cheng invoked Taiwan’s status as a democracy and declared that Taiwan would not be a pawn in the US-China great power relationship.
Such efforts were not entirely persuasive. Her public remarks in China and in the United States, and her denial that they implied a pro-unification agenda, were reminiscent of an earlier, highly controversial KMT chair, Hung Hsiu-chu. Critics wondered what else Cheng and Xi had said in their closed-door session and whether it was accurately reflected in the official Chinese reports or Cheng’s and the KMT’s public recounting. Her US interlocutors and observers variously described her as “naïve” about China and cross-Strait relations and reportedly remained doubtful about her—and, in turn, about the KMT’s—commitment to making necessary investments in defense. Some who interacted with her noted dubiously that Cheng possessed an “impressive” optimism, was “idealistic,” and that it was “helpful” to hear Cheng explain her vision for cross-Strait relations. Some characterized Cheng’s inability to secure meetings with high-level executive branch officials and more members of Congress as a reflection of Washington’s discontent with her policy stances.
Adding to the challenge of interpreting Cheng’s statements was the speaker’s history of holding very different positions. Cheng’s earlier career had included stints as a KMT-bashing and pro-democracy activist, an advocate for something at least close to formal independence, and a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member of Taiwan’s legislature.
Uncertainties Rise with More High-Level Meetings
These Trump- and Cheng-driven perturbations threatened to exacerbate or reinvigorate features of US-Taiwan relations that are conducive to ambiguity and harmful to stability on strategic matters. The possibility of as many as three more Trump-Xi meetings before year’s end—at the G20, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and a second bilateral summit in the United States—raised the specter of similarly unsettling and confusing developments amid new rounds of Xi seeking concessions from Trump on Taiwan issues. Cheng’s positions posed a threat to the hard-won increased confidence in Washington that Taiwan had received and was acting upon the message about the need to increase defense spending, as well as to reorient it toward asymmetric capabilities. Trump’s behavior and statements around the summit offered reinforcement for the views of Taiwanese proponents of yimeilun. This “America skepticism” underpins arguments, from some in the KMT and Taiwan’s “blue” camp (and evident in Cheng’s statements), for a more accommodating approach to an increasingly powerful and determined China. The full impact of the arms sales delay on attitudes and confidence in Taiwan does not seem to have registered in the United States.
On the “green,” largely DPP-aligned, side of Taiwan’s political divide, the summit also sharpened the imperative to keep the United States on side, while also avoiding reinforcing the KMT narrative that DPP control in Taiwan meant heightened risk of war. Trump’s summit-related comments drove Lai down the fraught path of a possibly Trump-provoking pronouncement that Taiwan’s sovereignty and cross-Strait peace and stability were not to be bargained away, while also reiterating expressions of thanks for US support for Taiwan’s security, reaffirming Taiwan’s commitment to cross-Strait peace and increased defense spending, rebuffing Beijing’s claims that Taiwan wants to provoke a war by declaring independence, characterizing China as the source of instability and threats to peace across the Strait and in the region, and waiting (surely with ambivalence) for a promised call from the US president (which Trump reportedlypostponed to avoid angering Beijing).
In this difficult context, two moves could help maintain cross-Strait stability and US commitments to (deterring Beijing and, when necessary, Taipei from triggering conflict or severe crisis in the Strait. On the US side, Trump could be more consistent and conventional in his messaging regarding the US position on Taiwan. In Taiwan, politicians could dial back the familiar pattern of each side trying to disqualify the other as unacceptably, even catastrophically, dangerous on the existential—and thus electorally vital—issue of relations with the PRC.
But neither of these changes is likely. The former would be out of character for Trump’s leadership style and would likely depend on greater assertiveness from within the administration and Congress than has been seen during Trump’s second term. The latter would require a departure from an entrenched dynamic in Taiwan politics, which is even more unlikely in the aftermath of the Trump and Cheng disruptions, in the run-up to Taiwan’s November elections, which are often (over)read as harbingers of outcomes in presidential and legislative elections fourteen months later, and as the focus on the 2028 elections, and especially the selection of a KMT presidential candidate, intensifies.
Focusing on Continuity Rather than Clarity in US Policy
With such options likely off the table, there is much to be said for looking to the substantial factors favoring stability and continuity—albeit at some cost of underscoring the problem of ambiguity.
Matters affecting US Taiwan policy, it is generally and likely rightly believed, must be approved by Trump personally—not least because of their potential impact on the great power relationship between the United States and China (and the relationship between Trump and Xi) that have been major concerns for Trump. But, with Trump, words seemingly portending policy changes—even when more consistent than his comments about Taiwan-related issues have been—often are not translated into action.
Although a US president can effect wrenching disruptions in US foreign policy, that has not happened in policy on Taiwan and cross-Strait issues, despite the concerns and inferences that Trump’s statements have triggered. A style of foreign policy that has the characteristics widely and plausibly ascribed to Trump’s—transactional, personalistic, or erratic—is less likely to create the foundations for fundamental and lasting reorientations.
Taiwan policy may have been left to, or at least influenced by, senior government officials. Some of them have histories as “China hawks,” and some generally favor continuity in US policy toward Taiwan and cross-Strait affairs. Support for Taiwan and stability in Taiwan-related US policies is long-standing and remains relatively robust and bipartisan in the legislative branch and entrenched at working levels in the executive branch. These residual features are likely to endure as barriers or deterrents to transformative presidential initiatives.
Trump’s evident hope for up to three additional meetings with Xi, and for positive tones at those meetings, may further reduce the likelihood of major developments. There will be so little time before each of the clustered meetings to do the necessary foundational work for substantial deliverables, so much incentive to avoid taking risks that could derail the next iteration and, in turn, the recently achieved stability in bilateral relations, and so high a likelihood that Trump can be satisfied with minor or hollow commitments that he can tout as great successes. To be sure, disruption is always possible, as illustrated by Trump’s July revival of unsubstantiated charges of China’s interference in US elections.
US policy toward Asia has been an area of relative stability and continuity in the Trump era, compared to the shifts seen in policies toward Europe, Russia-Ukraine, the Middle East, and Latin America. A year and a half into Trump’s second term, similarly jarring developments in the president’s Asia policy seem less likely. In the second half of his second term, Trump may face a less acquiescent Congress, with Democrats possibly controlling one or both houses and Republicans sustaining or building upon their recent efforts to push back on Trump, especially on national security issues including Taiwan. In two and a half years, the United States will have a new president who may well return to a more conventional approach in foreign policy. The longevity of any Trump-era changes affecting Taiwan issues is thus doubtful. It is also possible that regional states will make up for some of the consequences of Trump-era retrenchments of US commitments and regional partners’ confidence. While there is, of course, no ready analogue to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Western Pacific, Japan has strikingly toughened its stance on Taiwan’s security in recent years, with a notable additional uptick under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Continuity Despite the Wild Card of Taiwan’s Political Leadership
On the Taiwan side, the link between words—especially Cheng’s—and policy change is largely speculative. Cheng is far from certain to be the KMT’s nominee for president in 2028. Her conciliatory stance on cross-Strait relations drew high-profile praise and criticism, largely along Taiwan’s entrenched partisan lines, but not entirely so. It provoked negative reactions within the top echelons of the KMT. And Cheng is not aloneamong prospective KMT presidential nominees (indeed, ones more likely than Cheng) in travelling to America. Although her prospects may have faded somewhat, Lu is regarded as a possible front-runner and is a serious candidate for the KMT nomination. Han, as the party’s and majority coalition’s leader in parliament and the KMT’s 2020 presidential nominee, has been considered a potential contender, all the more so after his arguably candidate-like visit to the United States. Both adopted policy lines markedly different from the more controversial elements of Cheng’s. Although not entirely in alignment with one another, Lu and Han did not call into question traditional positions on cross-Strait relations, stressed the importance of a strong US-Taiwan relationship, spoke of the threat to Taiwan posed by China, and expressed relatively positive views on defense spending and US arms purchases, with Han’s trip following close upon his brokering the passage of a supplemental appropriations bill to fund the acquisitions that Trump has put into limbo. Another potential KMT presidential candidate (albeit likely in a later cycle), Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, distanced himself from Cheng’s characterizations of identity issues and the 1992 Consensus, describing himself as Taiwanese and a citizen of the Republic of China (ROC), and declaring the 1992 Consensus as conforming to the ROC constitution, including ROC sovereignty and safeguarding Taiwan’s democracy, freedom, and rule of law. Cheng’s party well remembers the fate of Hung in 2016, whom the KMT ousted and replaced as its candidate amid dismal polling.
The US trips by Lu, Cheng, and Han in 2026 have come far too early to be analogous to the ritual—andsometimes consequential—visits by the out-of-power party’s presidential candidate and Washington’s vetting of his or her aims and abilities on cross-Strait issues.
Although Beijing’s pressure on Washington has preempted the customary transit visits to the US mainland, incumbent president and presumptive 2028 DPP candidate Lai may win his bid for reelection and produce, for better or worse, a high level of continuity in China policy and cross-Strait relations. Lai’s approval ratings have been volatile and rarely strong. His political vulnerabilities are significant. A fourth consecutive presidential term for the party in power would be unprecedented in Taiwan’s three-decade-long fully democratic era, as was Lai’s winning a third consecutive term for the DPP in 2024. Nonetheless, the DPP’s nominee is likely to have a solid chance, especially given the KMT’s own political weaknesses and the precariousness of its alliance with the Taiwan People’s Party.
Taiwan’s presidents do not have entirely free hands. Whatever their policy preferences, those seeking Taiwan’s highest office would be unwise to over-interpret the public’s reactions to Cheng’s, or others’, rhetorical innovations or to embrace policies that stray far from Taiwanese voters’ clear and stable preference for maintaining the cross-Strait status quo.
Managing China’s Perceptions
Avoiding an over-reading of ambiguities and the likelihood of change is still more imperative amid challenges posed by the third side of the Taiwan-US-China triangle. The largely host-managed vibe of the Trump-Xi summit was one of a meeting among equals. The summit came against the backdrop of an increasingly prevalent narrative in the PRC that China is ascending while the United States is declining, which is a view that, according to Trump, Xi reiterated at their meeting. Xi cautioned Trump about the importance of the two countries’ working to avoid the “Thucydides trap”—the likelihood that a rising power (China) and the previously dominant power (the United States) would come into conflict (most likely over Taiwan).
Trump’s war of choice in Iran provided potent pre-summit fodder for such views: the US president seeking China’s help to press Iran to make a deal (despite asserting that such help was not needed); the depletion of US stores of weapons that would be needed in a US-China conflict over Taiwan; the erosion of Trump’s political standing at home and abroad, accelerated by the Iran war; the likely diminishment of the US public’s appetite for military intervention abroad; and China’s possible soft power gains through its calls for peace in the Persian Gulf and offers of relief to regional states hit hard by constricted oil supplies. Such developments dovetailed with already rising doubts among US regional partners and allies (including Taiwan) about US reliability and China’s self-presentation as an underwriter of international stability.
If Xi and China overestimate ambiguity or decline in Taiwan’s or America’s will or the likelihood of Trump’s and Cheng’s more destabilizing words portending meaningful policy change, and overly discount the factors favoring continuity, the result could be a dangerous increase in Xi’s—and China’s—perhaps already excessive self-confidence and, in turn, the likelihood of further accelerating Beijing’s assertive behavior toward Taiwan that could precipitate crisis or conflict across the Strait and between the United States and China.
Avoiding an over-reading of ambiguities and the likelihood of change is still more imperative amid challenges posed by the third side of the Taiwan-US-China triangle. The largely host-managed vibe of the Trump-Xi summit was one of a meeting among equals. The summit came against the backdrop of an increasingly prevalent narrative in the PRC that China is ascending while the United States is declining, which is a view that, according to Trump, Xi reiterated at their meeting. Xi cautioned Trump about the importance of the two countries’ working to avoid the “Thucydides trap”—the likelihood that a rising power (China) and the previously dominant power (the United States) would come into conflict (most likely over Taiwan).
Trump’s war of choice in Iran provided potent pre-summit fodder for such views: the US president seeking China’s help to press Iran to make a deal (despite asserting that such help was not needed); the depletion of US stores of weapons that would be needed in a US-China conflict over Taiwan; the erosion of Trump’s political standing at home and abroad, accelerated by the Iran war; the likely diminishment of the US public’s appetite for military intervention abroad; and China’s possible soft power gains through its calls for peace in the Persian Gulf and offers of relief to regional states hit hard by constricted oil supplies. Such developments dovetailed with already rising doubts among US regional partners and allies (including Taiwan) about US reliability and China’s self-presentation as an underwriter of international stability.
If Xi and China overestimate ambiguity or decline in Taiwan’s or America’s will or the likelihood of Trump’s and Cheng’s more destabilizing words portending meaningful policy change, and overly discount the factors favoring continuity, the result could be a dangerous increase in Xi’s—and China’s—perhaps already excessive self-confidence and, in turn, the likelihood of further accelerating Beijing’s assertive behavior toward Taiwan that could precipitate crisis or conflict across the Strait and between the United States and China.
About the author: Jacques deLisle is the Chair of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania.
Source: This article was published by FPRI
About Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Founded in 1955, FPRI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests and seeks to add perspective to events by fitting them into the larger historical and cultural context of international politics.
View all posts by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute →
About Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Founded in 1955, FPRI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests and seeks to add perspective to events by fitting them into the larger historical and cultural context of international politics.
View all posts by Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute →
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