Written by Chieh-Ting Yeh.
Image credit: Public domain.
The last two months have been a busy travel season for American and Taiwanese leaders. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te visited Eswatini on 2 May in a surprise twist after China spectacularly thwarted his trip by pressuring three other African states to deny their airspace to Lai’s flight. But earlier on 10 April, the leader of Taiwan’s opposition KMT, Cheng Li-wun, made a trip to China that was hailed by some as historic, including a face-to-face meeting with Chinese Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping.
With Cheng Li-wun claiming she would meet with US President Donald Trump, as well as Trump commenting he would “speak with” Lai, there may just be more one-on-one summits this summer.
But are one-on-one meetings between political leaders really as important as everyone makes them out to be?
Fanfare over substance
Taiwanese leaders, especially from the pro-China “blue” camp of parties like the KMT, have consistently viewed “shaking hands with Chinese leaders” as the best thing they can do in service to Taiwan’s well-being, as well as the pinnacle of their personal careers. Not only does landing this coveted meeting signal that they have a direct channel to influence the top decision-maker of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China, but it is also seen as opening a door to a peacefully negotiated solution to “tensions” in the Taiwan Strait.
This view is predicated on the assumption that a one-to-one face-to-face meeting must also mean a heart-to-heart conversation. True, in most normal social interactions, an in-person meeting is the best way to foster mutual understanding, humanise the other side’s positions, and focus the conversation about interests rather than postures to create win-win solutions.
However, diplomatic summits are oftentimes not about real open heart-to-heart conversations. They are just as much political theatre—especially in China.
Summit meetings with Chinese leaders are more about the pomp and circumstance, rather than the substance—if that ever happens, it happens in lower-level working groups. Chinese summit meetings are elaborate performances with very detailed, pre-written scripts.
Specifically for Taiwan, China never had any intention of ever dialoguing with Taiwan on an equal footing. China does not even want any inkling of legitimising Taiwan’s existence as a state anywhere. Any “deals” or “perks” that Beijing offers to Taiwan only serve to paper over that fact and highlight the irony of a lack of any real good faith concession of substance.
It would seem that neither Cheng Li-wun nor Donald Trump understands how leadership summits really work in China. They both share one misconception, fuelled by their common megalomaniac ego, that as long as they are put in a one-on-one in-person meeting with Xi, they can make meaningful change through the sheer willpower of their personal charisma and superior “negotiating skills.” But they only kid themselves. Chinese leaders like Xi Jinping are not interested in hashing out real differences; instead, they are interested in the political message the fanfare sends to the public at large.
The signals
Then what about the signals from the summits after the fact?
The Cheng-Xi meeting will soon be forgotten as a footnote in the history of the greater US-Taiwan-China saga, just as the Ma-Xi meeting was in 2015. That was a historic meeting between the leaders of Taiwan and China, as well as the chairmen of the two adversarial political parties in the Chinese Civil War. The two men even went through the indignity of calling each other “misters” rather than by their titles to avoid legitimising each other as heads of state. Yet that meeting did not produce any tangible progress for peace or for a negotiated solution for China’s territorial claim on Taiwan; if anything, ten plus years down the line, the tensions are much higher, thanks to China’s relentless grey zone warfare against Taiwan.
As for Trump, how he has fumbled through handling the Taiwan issue, even just on signalling, is no doubt an enormous setback for Taiwan. He reiterated his long-standing fixation on Taiwan “stealing” America’s semiconductor manufacturing business (the truth is, the US chose to strategically offshore that work to a cheaper and faster partner), and he brazenly and carelessly said arms sales to Taiwan are a “good negotiating chip.” It is clear that in a part of his mind, Taiwan is not just a liability and a threat, but an item on the menu of what can be sold.
Yet I am not so pessimistic. The geoeconomic realities that anchor (or trap, depending on who you ask) between the US, Taiwan, and China are such that any unilateral shock to the status quo is still difficult in the near future. An acute conflict in the Taiwan Strait will still be devastating to the US economy, not to mention the global economy, and the US cannot replace Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities in the near term (despite Trump’s fantasy to the contrary).
Where does this leave Taiwan?
Cheng meets with Xi, Trump meets with Xi, and then Trump said he would meet with Lai (which has been claimed to have been put on hold). As of the writing of this piece, Cheng is on tour in the United States. In the meantime, the arms sale package to Taiwan has also been reportedly delayed.
The Lai Administration’s response was tepid at best, as if caught in the dizzying headlights of motocross stunts flying around it. President Lai reiterated the DPP’s stance that Taiwan is already a sovereign nation and does not need to “declare independence.” He said Taiwan will not provoke nor escalate conflict, but will not, under pressure, give up national sovereignty and dignity.
The response is not incorrect, but it is tepid in how reactive it is. It simply reacted to Trump’s comments on Taiwan independence and adhered to the same basic position held by Taiwan’s administration since at least 2016. Politically, it signals a lack of confidence and boldness that is increasingly needed in Taiwan’s international relations.
It sparked a debate within the Taiwanese public, but ultimately it did little to prevent the Trump Administration from taking slight actions that signal a pullback from US-Taiwan ties, such as the delay in the arms sales package, and US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth breaking with precedent to omit Taiwan from his remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Instead of taking an overly cautious stance, the Lai Administration should propose that the central narrative over US-Taiwan relations has to be updated and refocused on principles as the foundation for a reliable partnership.
My previous piece for Taiwan Insight, “US-Taiwan Relations 2025 Review and 2026 Outlook”, has outlined what this principle-focused central narrative should focus on the following: The US and Taiwan can together strengthen and update the IP/design/manufacturing trade model and write the rules of the new international trade regime for the future; the US and Taiwan can be equal partners in both the immediate task of deterring China from raising regional tensions through military expansionism, and the long-term task of engaging and ultimately incentivising China to transform fundamentally from a one-party authoritarian superpower; and the US and Taiwan can reassert and bolster the inherent universality of freedom and democratic values together.
This is the stance that will allow Taiwan to be proactive in deciding its own path forward, instead of being bogged down in trying to rely on certain individuals’ delusions of grandeur to solve complex global conflicts, or to endlessly second- and third-guess itself, interpreting signals coming out from these political skits called “summits.”
As the political skits continue to unfold and the global public’s attention continues to be fixated on the tabloid of when did who say what to whom, Taiwan has an opportunity and a responsibility to be a proactive force of stability in the world.
Chieh-Ting Yeh is a venture investor in Silicon Valley and a director of US Taiwan Watch, an international think tank focusing on US-Taiwan relations. In addition, he is a co-founder and the editor of Ketagalan Media and an advisor for the Global Taiwan Institute and National Taiwan Normal University’s International Taiwan Studies Center.