Xi’s phrase ‘extremely dangerous situation’ is not mere rhetoric. Missteps could trigger escalation
When Xi Jinping told Donald Trump in Thursday’s closed-door talks that Taiwan could lead to “an extremely dangerous situation” if mishandled, he was not issuing a novel warning. He was articulating the structural reality of U.S.-China relations: beneath every summit, every trade negotiation, and every climate pledge lies the unresolved question of Taiwan. It is the permanent fault line that ensures tensions are never far from the surface.
The United States’ “One China” policy, born of the Nixon-Mao rapprochement in the 1970s, deliberately left Taiwan’s status ambiguous. Washington acknowledged Beijing’s claim but did not endorse it, while maintaining robust unofficial ties with Taipei. This ambiguity was meant to stabilize relations, but in practice it institutionalized uncertainty. Xi’s warning to Trump echoes the language of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin before him: Taiwan is the “core of core interests.” For Beijing, sovereignty is non-negotiable; for Washington, credibility in Asia requires resisting coercion.
Taiwan sits astride the first island chain, a maritime barrier critical to U.S. and allied defence planning. Its semiconductor industry makes it indispensable to global supply chains. While the Communist Party has tied its legitimacy to eventual “reunification.” Any perception of weakness on Taiwan risks internal instability.
Washington’s commitments to Tokyo, Seoul, and Canberra are judged by its resolve on Taiwan. A retreat would reverberate across the Indo-Pacific. Summits between Washington and Beijing follow a familiar choreography: trade concessions, military hotlines, or climate cooperation are announced, but Taiwan remains the shadow issue. Xi’s blunt words to Trump underscore that beneath the surface of cooperation lies a contest over sovereignty and legitimacy.
The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 obliges Washington to provide Taipei with defensive arms, a precedent that Beijing views as interference. Each arms sale, each congressional visit, each naval transit through the Taiwan Strait reactivates the latent tension.
Xi’s phrase “extremely dangerous situation” is not mere rhetoric. Missteps—whether in arms transfers, diplomatic recognition, or military manoeuvres—could trigger escalation. International law offers little clarity: the United Nations never resolved Taiwan’s status, and the International Court of Justice has avoided the issue. Precedent suggests that ambiguity can manage disputes, but ambiguity cannot prevent crises when national identity is at stake.
The warning in Thursday’s talks should be read less as a threat than as a reminder. U.S.-China tensions were never far from the surface because Taiwan is not peripheral—it is central. Until the sovereignty question is resolved, every summit will carry the risk of rupture. The challenge for Washington and Beijing is whether they can manage a dispute that touches the nerve of national identity without allowing it to ignite the broader competition for global order.
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Khedroob Thondup, a geopolitical analyst, is the nephew of the Dalai Lama.
