Global Shockwaves and the Shift in Strategic Patience

The May 14 Trump–Xi meeting and President Trump's subsequent remarks about it have undeniably generated shockwaves around the world. The impact of this diplomatic pivot is likely felt most acutely in Taiwan, as elements of the conversation reflected a warm interpersonal rapport between the two leaders, coupled with Trump's visibly unsupportive attitude toward Taiwan independence. This dynamic could carry profound implications for Taiwan's future.

Among the flurry of geopolitical speculation following the summit, one prominent concern is that the latest entanglement between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) might lead General Secretary Xi Jinping to abandon his long-held "strategic patience" toward Taiwan and instead opt for near-term military action. This is precisely the scenario that Professor Andrew J. Nathan seeks to warn the international community about, presenting his assessment in a stark and inconvenient-truth style. Undoubtedly, whether Beijing has already abandoned its strategic patience has been hotly debated within the security policy communities of major global powers over the past several years.

The Dynamics of Opportunity and Threat

The argument supporting the decline—or even disappearance—of Beijing's strategic patience is largely rooted in dual perceptions of opportunity and threat:

• The Opportunity Perception: This is driven by the PRC's rapidly expanding military capabilities, which many strategists believe could eventually dominate the regional battlefield and effectively deter U.S. intervention.
• The Threat Perception: Conversely, Beijing faces diminishing prospects for peaceful unification, accompanied by shifting elite and public opinion in Mainland China that increasingly favors unification by force. Furthermore, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faces looming domestic legitimacy challenges and a narrowing window of opportunity exacerbated by economic stagnation in Mainland China—often referred to as the "Peak China" theory.

To the deep concern of many regional observers, the situation across the Taiwan Strait has evolved in ways that simultaneously intensify both of these volatile perceptions.

Confidence, Complacency, and the Conventional Wisdom

Conversely, the argument for the continuation of strategic patience rests heavily on the PRC's internal confidence. When the "rising China" thesis was both compelling and widely accepted, most analysts believed that the PRC would inevitably replace the United States as the world's leading power in the foreseeable future. Within that atmosphere, Beijing maintained strong confidence that Taiwan would eventually return to China's orbit, and therefore saw no urgent need to accelerate the unification agenda.

However, the pandemic and its lingering economic aftermath appear to have undermined that prevailing confidence, making the doctrine of strategic patience seem increasingly unsustainable for the CCP leadership. Taken together, this picture appears to suggest a direct correlation: the lower the CCP's assessment of its own regime security, the higher the likelihood that it may resort to military action against Taiwan.

This is precisely where Nathan's article becomes most intriguing. Nathan's reading of Xi's mindset suggests a tendency toward military action driven not by desperation, but by complacency. If this assessment ultimately proves correct—which the international community sincerely hopes it does not—the conventional wisdom regarding the CCP's established behavioral patterns will be thrown into serious doubt.

I agree with Nathan that the current global landscape may present a tempting moment for Beijing to act offensively. The United States is heavily consumed by the war with Iran, while reciprocal tariff wars have inflicted tremendous damage on U.S. leadership over the alliance networks it has painstakingly built over more than a century. Nonetheless, these geopolitical distractions are still not sufficient to outweigh the core logic of conventional wisdom: throughout history, fear and the perception of threat have far more often driven attempts to alter the status quo than mere dissatisfaction or the perception of opportunity.

The Strategic Intersection of Two Unpredictable Leaders

Placed in the current context, whether the PRC continues—or resumes—a long-game strategy is not solely a matter of calculating material resources; it also depends heavily on how domestic and diplomatic developments unfold in both Washington and Taipei.

First, as historians have widely observed, CCP leaders throughout the reform era have generally demonstrated a strong orientation toward risk aversion in both foreign and security policy. General Secretary Xi Jinping is no exception. While Xi has aggressively elevated unification as the central theme of his Taiwan policy, there has not yet been a single instance in which he initiated a war to occupy territory that the PRC did not already control before he assumed office.

To be sure, this does not mean that the PRC under Xi has refrained from using force to pursue its territorial ambitions. In some instances, Beijing has launched military or paramilitary operations to advance those aspirations, but importantly, all of these actions have stopped short of outright war. Similarly, the PRC's track record under Xi should not be interpreted as an absolute guarantee against a future all-out war or military blockade targeting Taiwan. Certainly not. Rather, it suggests that if Beijing were to launch a war or blockade against Taiwan, it would represent a highly exceptional case. In this sense, Xi operates within a framework of unpredictable predictability.

Given this historical context, it goes without saying that the response of a sitting American president to a potential war or blockade scenario is critically important. Some political commentators jokingly claim that Trump "always chickens out" (TACO), but regardless of whether one supports him or not, most analysts would agree that Trump remains highly unpredictable. There are numerous documented instances in which Trump has responded aggressively immediately after making seemingly conciliatory gestures. Consequently, no one can accurately predict how Trump would actually respond if a war or blockade were to occur.

This volatile reality makes risk assessment an extraordinarily daunting task for Beijing. The combination of Xi's "unpredictable predictability" and Trump's "predictable unpredictability" actually provides a strong reason to be somewhat less pessimistic about the imminence of war over Taiwan.

Taiwan's Next Step: Boosting Defense and Restarting Engagement

Second, whether Beijing remains committed to the patient path of a long game also depends deeply on how cross-strait relations evolve. For Taiwan, just as it urgently needs to strengthen its defense capabilities sufficiently to deter military adventurism, there is also an urgent need for well-conceived engagement strategies that raise the rewards of maintaining a long game.

In Taiwan's public discourse, much has been said about strengthening national defense, although considerably more still needs to be done in practice to match the political rhetoric. By contrast, dangerously little attention has been devoted to the question of how to engage effectively in ways that make a long game both workable and strategically desirable for both sides.

True, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify common ground and reduce mutual hostility across the Taiwan Strait in the current geopolitical climate. Nevertheless, with greater confidence emerging from a series of bilateral leaders' summits—notably including the Xi–Trump meeting—the PRC may rediscover the broader attractiveness of pursuing a long game, and in turn gradually lower the threshold for doing so. In this sense, rather than succumbing to fatalism, the present moment may actually offer an opportunity to boldly redesign and restart Taiwan's engagement efforts with Mainland China.