Trump Should Be More Ambitious With China

The Trump administration’s war against Iran is an implicit policy of deprioritizing Asia. Once again, American resources and attention are diverted to the Middle East. An amphibious assault ship and a unit of marines deployed from Japan. Precision weapons the U.S. would need in a fight with China were transferred from the Indo-Pacific and rapidly expended. And President Donald Trump’s April trip to China, to be the first by an American president in nearly a decade, was delayed by a month and a half to May 14 and 15. The president said he needed to stay in Washington because “we’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here.” 

China policy has been a relative success of Trump’s second term record, but it needs sustained attention. And in this administration—especially now—that is the rarest and most-fleeting of commodities. The shakiness of the Iran ceasefire and the lack of progress in negotiations mean that U.S. forces will be mired in combat conditions when the president lands in Beijing. Iran is not a central topic of U.S.–China relations and the war does not make it so. Its biggest impact on this week’s summit will be as a drag on the U.S. side’s already limited willingness to discuss the difficult political-military differences at the root of U.S.–China tensions.

Trump defied expectations that he would resume the hardline approach to China begun in his first term and continued by the Biden administration. Since stepping back from his “Liberation Day” tariffs, Trump’s dealmaking instincts have been in the driver’s seat. Last October in Busan, South Korea, he and the Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed a one-year trade “truce” in which China resumed exports of rare earth products to U.S. firms and purchases of U.S. agricultural products, the U.S. suspended an expansion of the list of Chinese firms subject to American export controls, and both sides suspended their most punitive tariffs.

The likeliest outcome (and lowest bar for success) of the Beijing visit is a deal to renew and formalize this truce. Preparatory meetings led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng reportedly discussed agricultural, energy, and aircraft purchases by China, rare earth supplies to the U.S., export controls, AI, and the establishment of permanent “boards” to manage bilateral trade and investment. Rescheduling the summit afforded more time to expand these discussions, which—even before the U.S. attacked Iran—were reportedly hamstrung by lack of preparation on the U.S. side. 

The administration should aim higher. It has become fashionable in Washington to analyze U.S.–China relations as a series of techno-economic races. The de facto outsourcing of China policy to Bessent reflects this perspective. Yet the primary causes of the rivalry are political: mutual paranoia about the status and fate of Taiwan; China’s evaluation that the U.S.-led regional order is designed to “comprehensively contain, encircle, and suppress” China; and American concerns that China seeks to overwhelm its military and push the U.S. out of Asia. Neglecting them leaves the relationship vulnerable to crises and a steadily worsening spiral of suspicion and strategic confrontation. 

China’s role in coaxing Iran into the April 7 ceasefire was welcome and the American side’s desire for further Chinese help in pressuring Iran into a peace deal gesture at the opportunities that may open if the underlying relationship were to improve. Conversely, reports that China gave satellite surveillance capabilities to Iran and considered sending it portable air-defense systems preview a more confrontational one.

U.S. strategy requires engagement on first-order questions. The new National Defense Strategy states that the U.S. seeks a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific and “a decent peace” acceptable to China. These are prudent goals and a vast improvement on the complacent primacy that has defined post-war U.S. policy in Asia. Achieving them depends in part on a mature political track with China, not only to communicate redlines, but also to explore formulas to narrow the underlying disagreements. 

Xi has made clear that he wants to discuss these disagreements—especially Taiwan, which he accurately calls “the most important issue” in U.S.–China relations. Taiwan policy was reportedly absent from the Trump–Xi discussions in late October. But days later it flared when Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told a Diet hearing that a Chinese use of force to blockade Taiwan could constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan, a legal requirement that could allow Japan to intervene militarily with the U.S. 

Although the possibility that a Taiwan conflict could meet this threshold has been accepted in Japanese policy circles for a decade, this was the first time a sitting prime minister said it out loud. China accused Takaichi of departing from Japan’s One China Policy and demanded she retract the comments. Takaichi refused and since November the relationship has been in a deep freeze. China has throttled tourism to Japan and imports of Japanese seafood, and put export controls on major Japanese firms. Chinese readouts hint that Xi raised the Japan issue with Trump in phone calls in November and February. And, according to one report, Trump asked Takaichi to pump the brakes.

This fits the pattern of previous bouts of Sino-Japanese tension, such as in 2010–2012 over the Senkaku Islands, but—crucially—it is the first since their 1972 diplomatic normalization that is specifically about Taiwan. The Taiwan question has now reached a level of such unmanageability that it is roiling ties between China and Japan, perhaps the United States’ most important ally. China is not poised to use force against Taiwan, and the Iran War probably has little influence on its calculations, which are overwhelmingly related to the specific cross-strait political situation. Nevertheless, Taiwan is not just a difficult side issue. It is becoming a long-term wild card that in the extreme could threaten the stability of the American security system in Asia—partly because the U.S. has tried hard to link its alliances to the defense of Taiwan.

Most of Washington’s China-watchers would prefer to marginalize cross-strait politics as an issue in U.S.–China relations. The expectation that Xi will ask Trump to verbally “oppose,” rather than “not support” Taiwan independence and Trump’s February 16 remark that he intends to talk to Xi about American arms sales to Taiwan have raised fears that the U.S. will betray Taiwan’s interests for a short-term trade deal. But the reverse danger should also weigh in U.S. policymakers’ calculations. Merely repeating the traditional talking points does nothing but paper over a widening divergence between each side’s actions and their central commitments under the “One China” framework: that China will strive for peaceful reunification and the U.S. will not pursue a policy of “one China” and “one Taiwan.” 

This deteriorating understanding is the foundation of the U.S.–China relationship. Rather than shunting it to the side, the White House should be open to measures for sustaining it. Whether these are rhetorical moves such as “opposing” Taiwan independence or limits on U.S.–Taiwan relations, they should be tied to corresponding Chinese measures favorable to American and Taiwanese interests. These might include qualified renunciations of the use of force against Taiwan or limits on Chinese military activity near the island.

This week’s meeting is not make or break. Trump and Xi may meet up to three additional times in 2026. But the ongoing Iran War will constrain the American side’s perception of its freedom of action. No U.S. president—not even Donald Trump—wants to go out on a political limb for a great power deal while also flailing through an unpopular war. White House officials have already told journalists in pre-trip briefings not to expect summit deliverables about Taiwan or arms control. The administration plainly wants to sustain what Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “strategic stability” across the U.S.–China relationship. They may achieve that as a product of leader-level preference and the evident desire of both countries’ systems for an interregnum to patch techno-industrial vulnerabilities. 

When Trump asks Xi to help pressure Iran into signing a deal to end the war, however, he may learn that “strategic stability” does not imply cooperation. The war harms China’s interests, yet the adversarial logic of the relationship means Xi is unlikely to help bail the U.S. out of a situation that harms American interests more. More broadly, “strategic stability” will remain vulnerable to crises caused by unplanned military encounters and the declining credibility of the “One China” framework. U.S.–China relations are structurally competitive, but they do not have to be purely so, nor so prone to accident and force. Going beyond a truce requires both sides to deal with difficult political questions, including Taiwan. Hopefully this week’s summit will convince them to take the risk.