PRCorner — The “Other” Meeting

By Youssef Asaad, NSI Research Assistant

Headline:

Earlier this month, former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. One day later, President Biden hosted the first-ever trilateral U.S.-Philippines-Japan leaders’ summit, which included an agreement to maintain security and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Background:

As a senior member of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, former President Ma has continuously sought to foster better ties between Taiwan and China. In 2015, Ma met Xi for the first face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two countries in a historic summit in Singapore and in 2023, Ma became the first Taiwanese leader to visit China since the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949. On this most recent trip, Ma, traveling in his personal capacity, became the first Taiwanese leader to meet with a sitting Chinese leader inside of China.

Trendlines:

China’s increasing aggression towards Taiwan is part of its larger strategy of expansionism. As part of their objective to control the Eastern Asian region, China claims almost the entire South China Sea despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling against its claims in 2016. Its hostile actions in the South China Sea have caused maritime run-ins between Japan, the Philippines, and China to become steadily more frequent. In response, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. doubled the number of bases American soldiers can access and began talks with Japan to allow Japanese forces into the Philippines. Chinese aggression also contributed to a major policy shake up by Japan in December 2022, which saw the country shift from its post-World War Two defense-only posture to a national strategy endorsing the acquisition and development of more offensive capabilities and increasing their defense budget to 2% of GDP by 2027.

Why It Matters:

The meeting between President Xi and former President Ma is deeply symbolic in its timing. The meeting happened just weeks before Lai Chin-te, who has drawn China’s ire for his pro-Taiwanese independence views, will be inaugurated as President of Taiwan. Furthermore, according to a senior official in Taiwan, Beijing purposely postponed Xi’s meeting a few days to coincide with Biden’s summit. Ma’s visit also came on the heels of Honduras severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of Chinese investment.

The trilateral meeting between the U.S., Japan, and the Philippines, while less symbolic in timing, is significant in scope. In a joint statement on the first day of the summit, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida laid the foundation for a series of projects that promises a “new era” of U.S.-Japanese strategic cooperation. The projects include improvements to joint U.S., Australian, and Japanese air defense capabilities, defense communication networks, and an upgrade of U.S. and Japanese military command-and-control frameworks. Both the U.S. and Japan are also establishing a working group for fighter pilot training including the use of AI and advanced simulators.

While Xi’s meeting with Ma furthered China’s strategic goals for Taiwan and the broader South China Sea, the U.S.-Philippines-Japan trilateral summit was a warning for China that America’s defense commitments to Japan and the Philippines are “ironclad.” If there was a chance Xi believed that President Biden was too occupied with the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine to keep an eye on East Asia, President Biden was sending the signal that he is never too busy for China.

What’s Next:

There remains a willingness — at least superficially — for all countries involved to keep the lines of communication open for now. President Biden and Xi discussed stability in the Taiwan Strait on a phone call on April 2. Prime Minister Kishida and President Biden both emphasized that lines of dialogue remain open between their respective countries and China. However, the willingness to communicate will not deter any of the countries involved from continuing to hold increasingly significant meetings and summits that move the dial ever so slightly.

Youssef Asaad is a research assistant with the National Security Institute and a second-year law student at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Mr. Asaad holds a BA in Economics, with minors in Arabic and Political Science, as well as a Master of Business and Science from Rutgers University. He hopes to pursue a career in international affairs.