Will The US Become China's Indirect Enforcer On Taiwan?

Beijing has another route. Taiwan relies heavily on US security support, giving Washington influence over Taipei that Beijing lacks. Taiwanese leaders can reject a demand from China. It is harder to dismiss an American warning that a particular initiative could destabilize the Taiwan Strait or complicate US strategy elsewhere.

From Beijing's perspective, the shortest political route to Taipei may therefore run through Washington. Beijing can tell Washington that certain Taiwanese actions threaten the stability both powers say they want.

If US officials grow concerned about escalation, they may press Taipei to show restraint. What China cannot win through direct coercion, it may try to obtain through American crisis management.

In December 2003, during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington, President George W. Bush publicly opposed unilateral moves by either side and pointedly criticized then-president Chen Shui-bian's proposed referendum.

The US remained opposed to Chinese coercion, but the episode showed that American pressure could restrain Taipei. Beijing may have drawn a durable lesson: US influence over Taiwan can sometimes achieve what Chinese threats cannot.

Trump's transactional diplomacy makes that lesson newly relevant. His administration is juggling Iran, trade, technology and Taiwan, while Beijing can offer cooperation or restraint on some files and seek movement on others.

No collusion or formal bargain would be necessary. The two sides' incentives need only converge, leaving the most consequential accommodation tacit. Taiwan could thus slip into a quieter agenda, managed below the level of public confrontation while broader US-China bargaining continues.

Silence is not inherently sinister. Washington may keep Taiwan out of a formal agenda precisely because it rejects Beijing's claim to a say in US arms sales or Taiwan's political future. Less public rhetoric or military signaling can also reduce miscalculation without weakening underlying commitments.

The question is what accompanies the silence. Watch for a pattern: arms-sale approvals or announcements repeatedly postponed, senior-level contacts pared back, or security cooperation slowed at roughly the same time that Beijing moderates military pressure or assists Washington on Iran, trade or other priorities.

Each development may have an ordinary explanation. Repeated timing, reciprocity and cross-issue linkage would be harder to dismiss.

Taipei should not demand that Taiwan appear on every Trump-Xi agenda. Beijing formally treats Taiwan as an internal Chinese matter and rejects outside interference. Yet in direct US-China great-power bargaining, it has found tactical value in Washington's leverage over Taipei. Making Taiwan a bilateral agenda item could reinforce that mechanism.

Taiwan need not be discussed, but it shouldn't be decided upon in its absence.