Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan’s Kuomintang opposition party, began a two-week U.S. tour on Monday carrying a peace message that aligns closely with Beijing’s preferred framing on cross-strait relations, arriving at a moment of deepening uncertainty over Washington’s security commitments to Taipei.
In April, Cheng became the first leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in a decade. Her message for an American audience, according to the Wall Street Journal, is that Taiwan operates under a constitution already supporting the principle that the island and the mainland are part of a single China. Cheng maintains that she, not Taiwan’s current ruling Democratic Progressive Party, is the leader best positioned to guarantee stability across the Taiwan Strait.
Cheng is a possible contender in Taiwan’s 2028 presidential election, and people close to Beijing told the Journal that Xi has built a stake in her political future, grooming her as the Kuomintang’s standard-bearer. Beijing is counting on a government willing to enter political dialogue and advance what China calls peaceful reunification. China regards Taiwan’s current government as separatist.
A Cheng presidency would give Xi what a decade of military pressure has not: a government in Taipei prepared to negotiate Taiwan’s future.
“China has done a lot to try to elevate her,” said David Sacks, a Council on Foreign Relations fellow for Asia studies who met Cheng in Taipei after her Beijing trip and plans to host a private discussion with her in New York. If Cheng returns home having secured high-level American access, Sacks said, she can present herself as the one figure capable of managing both Beijing and Washington. “That,” he said, “would be a fairly formidable proposition.”
The visit arrives against the backdrop of Trump’s recent Beijing summit with Xi, where the American president dismissed as history the Six Assurances — a 1982 Reagan-era commitment, honored by successive presidents, that the U.S. wouldn’t consult Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan. Trump said he and Xi had “talked the whole night” about Taiwan and that he was holding the arms package “in abeyance,” calling it “a very good negotiating chip for us.”
The $14 billion arms package that Trump has paused comprises Integrated Battle Command System upgrades including Patriot missiles worth approximately $8.6 billion; Nasams surface-to-air missile systems and interceptor missiles worth $5.29 billion; counterdrone systems worth roughly $230 million; and M4A1 rifles worth about $500 million, according to the Journal. Senior lawmakers including House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Democrat Gregory Meeks informally approved the sale several months ago, but the administration has not officially notified Congress of the sale details, as required by law. People familiar with the deliberations said the administration is considering breaking the package into smaller tranches, a move that some said would further delay and diminish its deterrent effect.
A senior administration official pushed back on the notion that the U.S. is reducing its support for Taiwan, noting that Trump approved $11.1 billion in arms sales to the island in December and has approved more in his second term’s first year than in all four years under President Joe Biden. The official said Trump would make a determination in a fairly short time regarding the new Taiwan arms package.
People close to the White House told the Journal that Cheng should not expect meetings with top administration officials, pointing to a policy framework in which the administration engages foreign opposition leaders only when they are seen as likely future heads of government — a bar Cheng has not cleared. Cheng has expressed willingness to meet Trump, though she has also said that is likely to be difficult.
She is set to meet some lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, who sit on defense and foreign-affairs committees, said Victor Chin, the Kuomintang’s representative in Washington. Members of the congressional Taiwan caucus who have been vocal advocates for Taipei’s security would likely press Cheng on the island’s commitment to its own military spending, the Journal reported. They could also warn her about the Kuomintang appearing to give in to any coercion by Beijing and how such a posture could erode congressional support for Taiwan.
“Cheng’s message that Taiwan’s Constitution should be treated as a ‘one China’ principle risks being interpreted in Washington as political cover for delaying Taiwan’s defense support,” said Jason Hsu, a former Kuomintang legislator now at the Hudson Institute. “I would not say Cheng is acting as Beijing’s agent. But the optics are damaging — and in Washington, perception often becomes policy risk.”
Ahead of the visit, Taiwanese officials and analysts said Beijing is pressing a new narrative on Taiwan. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who has studied great-power rivalry for decades, told the Journal he plans to listen more than talk during his planned meeting with Cheng. The question he most wants answered, he said, is whether her strategy of accommodation envisions preserving the status quo for the long term or something closer to a managed drift toward Beijing’s terms.
“She’s pretty careful about her views,” Allison said. “I’ll be listening.”
In Taipei, officials pushed back against the Chinese narrative, framing Beijing as the true aggressor. Earlier in May, the Taiwanese military released rare surveillance images of a Chinese military transport aircraft and a naval vessel from a recent Chinese joint combat readiness patrol. Speaking Friday, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung challenged Cheng’s peace efforts, saying she should instead tell Xi to renounce invading the island. Shen Yu-chung, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters he would like to see Cheng represent the mainstream public opinion of Taiwan rather than echoing Beijing’s “one China” narrative.