The Recommended Stance of the United States with Regard to China, with Particular Reference to the Status of Taiwan

An article reprinted in the Star Tribune, written by Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani in the 14 May 2026 issue of New York Times, bore the title, ”Xi Warns Trump That China, U.S. Could Clash Over Taiwan,” New York Times, May 14, 2026.  Sometimes Star Tribune staff members rewrite the title, but in this case my assumption is that the title of the New York Times article was similar and in any case was consonant with the views of Xi that appeared in the article.

 

The article noted that Foreign Minister spokesperson, Mao Ning asserted that “The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” saying that if properly handled, bilateral relations will be stable but that if not potential clashes and conflicts could occur.

 

Xi asserts China’s ever increasing international power while also saying that China and the United States could avoid the “Thucydides Trap” (leading to war between a rising great power and a waning great power) by supporting the mutual advance of both the United States and China.  Thus, Xi effectively proclaimed the likelihood that China would soon overtake the United States as the preeminent world power while suggesting that such a reality need not lead to war.

 

Trump more simply and fawningly told Xi, “You are a great leader.”

 

On the Taiwan issue, Trump said little;  Marco Rubio reviewed the U.S. position favoring the status quo and said that an attack by China on Taiwan would be “a terrible mistake.”

 

A standard summative statement among journalists, including Weissert and Madhani, conveys that China “claims Taiwan as part of its territory.”

 

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Given mastery of sophisticated surveillance technology contemporary China is the most powerful totalitarian state in history, more powerful than either Stalin’s Russia of Hitler’s Germany.

 

China has used that power to imprison two million Uyghurs of the province Xinjiang and to remove 500,000 Uyghur children from their families to place them in boarding schools to be converted culturally into Han Chinese;  thus, the regime of Xi Jinping is guilty of cultural genocide as defined by international law.

 

The Xi regime has similarly sought to sinicize Tibet;  and has reneged on the 1997 agreement to pursue a fifty-year policy of “one country, two systems” of liberality toward Hong Kong, carrying out instead severely repressive policies in that former beacon of liberal capitalism.

 

United States policy should frankly state opposition to Xi regime policies in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, letting Xi Jinping know that the U. S. seeks among the democratic nations of the world and in the International Court of Justice (in Hague) condemnation of China’s Uyghur policy as cultural genocide.  And among those democratic nations of the world (including especially Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Australia) the United Sates seeks condemnation of Xi regime policies in Tibet and Hong Kong.

 

And as to the now common journalistic statement that “China claims Taiwan as part of its territory,” United States foreign policy experts should make clear that China has absolutely no basis for such a claim.  No government that has governed all of China has exercised control of Taiwan since 1895, when Taiwan came under Japanese control until 1945.  The People’s Republic of China has never controlled Taiwan.  Taiwan came under Guomindang (Kuomintang) control in the late 1940s after the latter lost the 1945-1949 Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taiwan;  then, in a remarkable series of events dating from 1987, the Taiwanese people developed a multiparty democracy, one of the world’s most successful economies, and progressive social policies that have advanced health care, transportation, women’s rights, and policies regarding gender identity that constitute an international model.

 

United States policy should state frankly that the long-prevailing one China policy is outdated:

 

Taiwan is an independent nation and the Taiwanese people have the right to declare official independence.  Such a declaration would be supported militarily as necessary by the United States and the aforementioned coalition including especially Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

 

The United States thus should let the Xi Jinping regime know clearly that on matters of trade, finance, and economics China and the U.S. can pursue a thriving relationship, but that on matters of international law the Xi regime has been greatly culpable.  The United States and allies will oppose oppressive totalitarian policies and firmly support Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, including an official declaration of independence.