Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council expects the Sept 24 summit in Washington between 
Donald Trump and 
Xi Jinping to produce little progress on cross-strait issues. The council said US-China-Taiwan relations would hold to "three unchanged," the Liberty Times reported. It also said Xi would wage cognitive warfare against Trump.
Where could the summit make progress? In an initial assessment reported by PTS, the council said the government was in close communication with Washington and judged that trade was the area where a breakthrough was possible. "From what we have gathered, it will probably be much the same as the first summit," deputy minister Shen Yu-chung said, adding that on geopolitics and cross-strait relations each side was "still saying its own thing." He said He Lifeng and Bessent appeared to have held some concrete consultations, so the council judged there could be some progress on trade.
What do analysts expect? With China's Fifth Plenum and the US midterm elections approaching, both leaders want the talks to go well and hope to keep up dialogue at the later APEC and G20 summits, scholars quoted by PTS said. Chang Wu-ueh, chief adviser at Tamkang University's cross-strait relations research centre, said he expected no major new statement or deal on Taiwan, and said Beijing and Washington want the same thing: to keep the Taiwan Strait issue from throwing US-China relations out of control. Scholar Chao Wen-chih said the long-term trend of US-China competition was set and that the government should watch whether the leaders' personal rapport was turning into institutional, strategic-level interaction.
What about Taiwan's F-16V jets? The first two F-16V single-seat fighters in Taiwan's new US purchase reached Hawaii on Aug 21 but have not flown on to Taiwan, a delay some have read as possibly tied to the summit, PTS reported. Kuomintang legislator Lee Yen-hsiu said the government should press Washington for more punctual delivery of later arms purchases. Democratic Progressive Party legislator Wang Ting-yu said Taiwan-US understandings on arms deliveries and sales would not be affected by Chinese interference.
Figures referenced: Xi Jinping, Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
