Xi Gives Trump a Taiwan Test

President Trump and Xi Jinping will meet in South Korea on Thursday, and most media attention is on trade. But Mr. Xi has another agenda, which is to coax Mr. Trump to weaken American support for the democracy of Taiwan.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend that Americans shouldn’t worry that the Administration “is going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan. No one is contemplating that.”

Good to hear. Mr. Xi’s big ask has been that the U.S. formally oppose independence for Taiwan. The current U.S. policy is deliberate ambiguity. It acknowledges China’s position that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of it, but doesn’t endorse that policy.

This isn’t a pedantic distinction. Mr. Xi, not unlike Vladimir Putin with Ukraine, aims to condition the world to his narrative that Taiwan is a rogue province—so he can subdue 23 million free people on an island the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled.

The U.S. doesn’t need to clarify its policy on whether it would defend Taiwan in a crisis. But a concession to Mr. Xi on independence would be self-defeating for Mr. Trump’s goals. Mr. Trump wants the island to spend more on its defense, but endorsing Mr. Xi’s view would undermine morale and tell the Taiwanese

that attempting to defend itself is futile. That’s what Beijing wants Taipei to conclude.

The practical effect would be to erode deterrence as the U.S. weathers a nadir in military power in this decade. It’d be a show of weakness that invites conflict, which was a GOP critique when Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in 2023 that “we do not support” Taiwanese independence.

The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 says: “any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes,” would be “of grave concern to the United States.” Only China is resorting to intimidation in the Strait, not Taiwan.

Mr. Rubio’s remarks suggest the President understands all this. But anything can happen with Mr. Trump in a room with Mr. Xi, and the U.S. President often muses that Taiwan is a mere mark on the map thousands of miles away from America.

Taiwan passes every test for a U.S. interest from raw geopolitics to core values. It is part of the first Pacific island chain that forms the U.S. security perimeter against Beijing’s ambitions. Too few politicians are pressing that case to the public. But for this week Mr. Trump can make a donation to world peace by refusing Mr. Xi’s demands to sell out Taiwan.