As Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet on Wednesday, May 14, Taiwan's national security establishment is pushing back against what officials describe as a dangerously distorted narrative — the idea that Taipei could be quietly traded away in a bilateral deal between Washington and Beijing.
"Just because you see a cutting board doesn't mean you're the sashimi," one senior official said, in remarks that captured the government's frustration with the framing. The message was pointed: Taiwan should concentrate on making itself strategically indispensable, not on catastrophizing about a sellout that officials say fundamentally misreads how U.S.-China diplomacy actually works.
Every Summit Raises the Arms Sales Question — Washington Hasn't Budged
Beijing raises the issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan at virtually every high-level meeting with Washington, demanding a halt to weapons transfers. It has done so consistently, and consistently the U.S. has declined to comply. Officials say that pattern is unlikely to break this week.
What has changed, they argue, is the broader strategic context in which those sales sit. Washington has increasingly repositioned Taiwan not merely as a security concern but as a critical node in the global semiconductor supply chain — and as a linchpin of the Indo-Pacific's maritime security architecture. Far from reducing defense commitments, the U.S. and its regional partners have been expanding them. Every country along the first island chain has been raising defense readiness in direct response to Chinese military pressure, officials noted, and American strategic interests in western Pacific stability remain unchanged.
Officials added that the United States has also been working toward building a force capable of deterring aggression along the first island chain, with the explicit goal of enhancing joint denial capabilities in and around Taiwan.
Taiwan's own defense modernization, officials added, has advanced most substantially during periods of close U.S. cooperation — and stalled most sharply under the previous Kuomintang administration, which voluntarily reduced defense investment even as China's military budget grew by double digits in the same period.
The Summit's Real Agenda: Trade, Supply Chains, and CRINK
From Washington's vantage point, officials said, the Trump-Xi meeting is fundamentally about managing China risk across two fronts. The first is economic: resolving U.S.-China trade tensions, addressing the distortions caused by Chinese industrial oversupply, and reducing national security risks stemming from dependence on red supply chains and China-aligned sources. The second is geopolitical:growing risks posed by China's non-peaceful expansion across the Taiwan Strait, the western Pacific, the Middle East, and the Global South.
Officials pointed to the September 2025 gathering on the Tiananmen rostrum as a concrete illustration of the converging threats that now require direct management at the highest diplomatic level. The event was attended by leaders of what analysts have called the CRINK alignment — comprising China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The Real Risk Heading Into Wednesday Comes From Beijing, Not Trump
Counterintuitively, Taiwan's security officials say the most immediate threat to Taipei heading into the summit is not what Trump might concede — it is what Beijing is likely to argue.
Last Friday, a KMT-led legislative majority in Taiwan's Yuan voted to significantly cut proposed U.S. defense procurement funding. Officials warned that Beijing will almost certainly use that vote as diplomatic ammunition, presenting it to Trump as evidence that Taiwan's own elected parliament opposes buying American weapons — and arguing that Washington should therefore reduce or suspend defense support to Taipei.
That framing, officials said, is the sharpest and most concrete danger Taiwan faces this week. On May 8, the Legislative Yuan passed the Special Act on Procurement for Defending National Security and Strengthening Asymmetric Combat Capabilities, with Democratic Progressive Party legislators chanting "No compromise on national security" in the chamber.The contrast between the legislative budget cuts and the concurrent security-focused procurement bill is viewed by officials as a mixed signal that Beijing is likely to exploit.
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