As a planned April trip to Beijing teetered, President Donald Trump moved quickly to roll back several high-profile US restrictions on Chinese firms, portraying the changes as confidence-building measures ahead of a summit. Chinese commentary framed the gestures as too limited and warned that the real obstacle to a visit was Washington's handling of Taiwan, not trade or telecom disputes.
Beijing publicly and privately made clear that large-scale arms sales to Taiwan would be a dealbreaker for high-level exchanges. Chinese statements cited warnings delivered through diplomatic channels: if the United States proceeded with a roughly $20 billion arms package — reportedly including advanced air- and missile-defence systems — China would reconsider or withdraw invitations for bilateral engagement, including a presidential visit.
In response, the White House reportedly paused enforcement of several security-related bans that had targeted Chinese technology and transport firms. Measures put on hold included prohibitions on China Unicom and China Mobile operating internet services in the United States, restrictions on TP-Link router sales, limits on Chinese equipment entering US data centers, and bans on Chinese electric buses and trucks. The interventions are tactical adjustments designed to create a more accommodating atmosphere before the trip.
But the concessions are narrow and largely peripheral to Beijing's core demand: a credible, demonstrable US stance on Taiwan. Chinese commentary insisted that easing tech restrictions cannot substitute for changes in US policy toward Taipei. Beijing is pressing for a freeze on new large-scale arms packages, suspension of delivery of approved but not yet shipped advanced systems, and an explicit commitment to the arms-limitation language in the 1982 August 17 communique.
Beyond arms sales, China wants Washington to curb official interactions with Taipei, oppose Taiwan independence publicly, and refrain from promoting Taiwan's participation in fora limited to sovereign states. Beijing also expects a clear US reaffirmation of the one-China policy and avoidance of ambiguous rhetoric that could be read as support for separatism. Those steps would be aimed at shoring up the political foundations for a resumed programme of high-level bilateral engagement.
The tug-of-war exposes a persistent dilemma in US-China relations: technological and commercial frictions are negotiable; sovereignty and security questions tied to Taiwan are not. For Washington, the calculus is also domestic. Trump must balance outreach to Beijing against political incentives to appear tough on China, and the optics of approving or delaying major arms sales carry weight with Congress and with pro-Taiwan constituencies.
For Beijing the leverage is straightforward. Invitations and the trappings of diplomacy are conditional tools that can be wielded to extract concessions on issues China regards as core. Whether Beijing will follow through on a threatened withdrawal of an invitation depends on its assessment of US political will and the strategic value of a face-to-face encounter with the US president.
The immediate watch items are whether the White House will formally suspend or cancel the reported $20 billion package and whether China will publicly rescind any invitation. Even if the narrow tech relaxations smooth bilateral talks in the short term, the episode underscores how Taiwan remains the central fault line in US-China ties and how summitry depends on hard, not symbolic, concessions.