Over Taiwan’s Qingming holiday weekend, as families cleaned ancestral graves and crowded around dinner tables, a familiar debate has resurfaced: should this island democracy rely more heavily on the United States for its security or try to reduce tensions by engaging with China?
For some, the war in Iran has raised urgent questions about how much attention the US can sustain if multiple crises unfold at once. Delays in arms deliveries, depletion of weapon stockpiles and President Donald Trump’s transactional approach to allies and partners all reinforce those doubts.
That debate is sharpening this week as Cheng Li-wun, the firebrand chair of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, heads to China on a six-day trip that could include a landmark meeting with leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
If Cheng meets Xi — who invited her as the head of the Chinese Communist Party — it would be the first official encounter between a sitting KMT chair and China’s top leader in a decade. It would also come ahead of Trump’s summit with Xi in May, where Taiwan is expected to be high on the agenda.
Cheng has framed her visit as a peace-making trip, proclaiming that it is a first step to reduce tensions between Taipei and Beijing, which has vowed one day to take control of Taiwan, by force if necessary.
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