The Biden-Xi Summit and Taiwan

Heading into the much-anticipated summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 15, Taiwan was one of China’s top priorities. Chinese analysts and officials routinely deem the fate of the self-governing island to be the most important issue in the China-U.S. relationship. That’s been the case since Henry Kissinger’s ice-breaking trip to China in 1971, where a modus vivendi on Taiwan had to be worked out before Kissinger’s Chinese hosts would even discuss other issues.

Xi Jinping himself shares that assessment. According to the readout from China’s Foreign Ministry, Xi told Biden that “the Taiwan question remains the most important and most sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations.”

It was also easy to read a reference to Taiwan in Xi’s later discussion of China’s “interests that must be safeguarded, principles that must be upheld, and red lines that must not be crossed.” China and the United States, Xi said, must “appreciate each other’s principles and red lines, and refrain from flip-flopping, being provocative, and crossing the lines.” Certainly China believes current U.S. Taiwan policy is “flip-flopping” (by reneging on previous U.S. commitments), “provocative,” and “crossing the lines” (something China specifically warned that former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was doing when she visited Taiwan in August 2022).

Given the importance China attaches to the issue of Taiwan, it’s no surprise that it was the first specific issue mentioned in the Foreign Ministry’s readout, after a lengthy discussion of general principles for the China-U.S. relationship

“The U.S. side should take real actions to honor its commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence,’ stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification,” Xi said, ending with an ominous warning: “China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable.”

By contrast, in the U.S. readout, which also began with a broad framing of the bilateral relationship, the first specific issue item was counternarcotics cooperation, followed by the resumption of military-to-military contacts. Taiwan wasn’t mentioned until farther down, after a section discussing “key regional and global challenges” (where Biden raised the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula, for example)

“On Taiwan, President Biden emphasized that our one China policy has not changed and has been consistent across decades and administrations,” the White House summary said. “ He reiterated that the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Biden also “called for restraint” in China’s “use of military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.” But in his remarks to the press, Biden was fairly soft on any criticism of China’s rapidly increasing military activities near Taiwan. Biden said that he “stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits” – a fairly neutral declaration compared to his discussion of “coercive activities in the South China Sea.”

When prompted for more detail on the military question by a reporter, Biden replied: “[W]e maintain an agreement that there is a One China policy… and I’m not going to change that. That’s not going to change. And so, that’s about the extent to which we discussed it.”

Beijing is unconvinced by the insistence from the Biden administration that its “One China policy” has not changed. It’s a fact that the United States has dramatically stepped up official visits to Taiwan by a steady stream of U.S. legislators (including Pelosi) as well as government officials. Meanwhile, Biden himself has repeatedly stated that the United States would defend Taiwan should China mount an invasion. Biden has even implied that he views that defense commitment to be on par with the U.S. treaty alliances (legally, there is no actual obligation for the U.S. to intervene in Taiwan’s defense).

Against that backdrop, China isn’t feeling reassured by a formulaic reference to the “One China policy.”

According to an influential Chinese foreign policy expert, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, China’s top goal for the Biden-Xi summit was to receive assurances from the United States that it supports “One China” and opposes “Taiwan independence.”

Sure enough, the Chinese readout mentioned a “commitment” made by Biden that the United States “does not support ‘Taiwan independence.’” However, that statement did not appear in the U.S. readout, at least not directly. It’s there, however, if you read between the lines of the statement: “the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side” (emphasis added). A move toward independence is the most likely way Taiwan would “unilaterally change the status quo.”

The reticence is somewhat curious. Adhering to a “One China policy” and refusing to support Taiwan’s formal independence has been the consistent approach of all U.S. administrations since the Nixon era. Ordinarily, those would be fairly anodyne reassurances. But in the current context, with Taiwan in the closing stretch of a contentious presidential election campaign, anything the U.S. president says on cross-strait relations will be read in that context by Taiwanese voters.

China’s preferences are clear: Beijing has repeatedly slammed the current ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, as pro-independence “splittists” and threatened them with “severe consequences” upon China’s annexation of Taiwan (which Beijing insists is inevitable). As Dominic Chiu, senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group, wrote ahead of the summit, Biden going on record as opposing Taiwan independence at this time “would play in Taiwan’s politics as a vote of no confidence in the DPP.”

Indeed, the opposition parties – mainly the Kuomintang (KMT), but also the upstart Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) – have based much of their campaign strategy on slamming the DPP as irresponsible on both cross-strait relations and U.S. relations. On the former, the KMT has attempted to frame the election as a choice between “war and peace,” referencing the DPP’s pro-independence leanings and China’s repeated threats to respond to any such policies with force. Meanwhile, the KMT also criticizes the DPP for getting too close to the United States, to the extent that it is allegedly “selling out” Taiwan’s interests to an unreliable Washington.

With the question of U.S. commitment to Taiwan and the DPP’s cross-strait policy key issues in the campaign, the Biden administration had to frame their messaging carefully during the Xi summit, to provide necessary reassurance to China while not unintentionally giving either political camp ammunition in Taiwan’s election.

“To the extent that there may be any concerns in Taipei about the Biden-Xi summit, it could be how the results – even in the absence of any indication of a policy change – from the meeting could be manipulated by Beijing to influence Taiwan's domestic political space with the upcoming 2024 elections in January,” Russell Hsiao, director of the D.C.-based Global Taiwan Institute, told the Diplomat.

Taiwan’s official response to the summit was positive. A Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the ministry “appreciates and welcomes that President Biden has again publicly underlined the United States’ firm position on the maintenance of cross-strait peace and stability through a meeting with the Chinese leader.”

“Since assuming office, the Biden administration has emphasized its rock-solid security commitment to Taiwan on multiple occasions and expressed its unwavering support for Taiwan through concrete actions,” the spokesperson added.

That framing, too, can be read in the context of the current election, as an attempt to head off any media narratives about U.S. “abandonment” following the Biden-Xi summit.