A handshake and a bargaining chip
Published 8 October 2026
On Friday, April 10, 2026 Cheng Li-wun, chair of the Kuomintang, met Xi Jinping in Beijing, the first sitting Kuomintang chair to do so in a decade. Xi said he was willing to deepen dialogue with parties including the Kuomintang "on the condition of opposing Taiwan independence." Cheng said opposing independence and keeping the 1992 Consensus was a way to "avoid war, prevent tragedy".
Xinhua's own account gives the Chinese framing. It called the meeting "the first meeting between the leaders of the two parties in a decade," held in the Great Hall of the People with Wang Huning and Cai Qi present. Xi called the Taiwan question "a scar left over by a full-blown civil war," said "Differences in social systems should not be an excuse for secession," and called independence "the chief culprit undermining peace across the Strait. We should neither condone nor tolerate it." He offered incentives too: mainland visits, opportunities for Taiwan's young people, and market access for Taiwan's farm and fishery products. Cheng told him that people on both sides "are Chinese and belong to one family" and that the two parties should hold to "the 1992 Consensus and opposing 'Taiwan independence'". A Democratic Progressive Party reader would see in that readout a candidate for the next presidency treating Beijing's terms as a starting point. A Kuomintang reader would see an alternative to the drills.
On Friday, May 8, the legislature passed a special arms-purchase bill capped at NT$780 billion, by 59 to 0 with 48 abstentions. The government had asked for NT$1.25 trillion. The cap splits as NT$300 billion for the December package and NT$480 billion for a package not yet announced. Six days later, on Thursday, May 14, Trump was in Beijing. Xi warned him of "clashes and even conflicts" if Taiwan was mishandled. In a Fox interview aired the next day, Trump said he was holding the roughly $14 billion arms package in abeyance and that it depended on China. He called it a "very good negotiating chip" and stressed that it involved a large quantity of weapons.
Aboard Air Force One on the way home, Trump also said a move by Taiwan toward independence "would be a very strong confrontation," and that "the last thing we need right now is a war that's 9,500 miles away". Taipei had just learned that one of its largest purchases was a bargaining item.