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The United States has no embassy in Taiwan and no treaty to defend it. It has a law, passed in 1979, that obliges it to sell the island arms for its defence and to keep the capacity to resist any use of force against it. Whether America would actually fight has been left unsaid on purpose for forty-five years, to deter Beijing from attacking and Taipei from declaring independence. The present American president has made the arrangement more uncertain by treating arms sales to Taiwan as something to discuss with China's leader.
The wider dispute and each side's full account: Taiwan.
Taiwan has proposed an addition of 4.6 billion US dollars to its defence budget, taking defence spending past one trillion dollars for the first time. China has threatened to cancel a planned summit over US arms sales to Taiwan, and its defence ministry urged extreme caution on the sales before the meeting. Xi is set to press Trump at the summit to halt the sales. Taiwan says a 14 billion dollar US arms package remains on hold and that it is in continuous talks with Washington about arms sales.
Ambiguity. Would America go to war with China over Taiwan. The policy is not to say. The last president said yes four times and was corrected by his staff each time. The present one declines to answer and speaks of deals.
Arms. In 1982 Washington told Beijing it would gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan, and told Taipei privately that it had set no date and would not consult Beijing. Sales have grown since. Tens of billions of dollars of weapons already bought have not been delivered.
The price. The administration has asked Taiwan to spend far more on defence, to move chip production to America, and has said the island should pay for protection.
American policy is unchanged: one China policy, the Taiwan Relations Act, no unilateral change by either side. Arms sales respond to the threat, which Beijing alone creates. Taiwan must do more for itself, as every ally must. The timing of any sale is the president's decision, and talking to Xi about stability is how wars are avoided.
The United States promised in three joint communiques to recognise one China and to reduce its arms sales to Taiwan, and has done the reverse. It arms a Chinese province against its own country, sends officials and warships, and uses the island as a card against China. This is interference in China's internal affairs and the greatest single danger to peace in the strait. Whoever plays with fire will be burned.
Taiwan buys weapons to defend itself against a declared threat, as any state may. It is raising its spending to a record share of output, lengthening conscription and investing in America's own industry. It asks for delivery of what it has paid for and for a partner whose word does not depend on a trade negotiation.
Washington's leaves out its written undertaking of 1982 to reduce the sales; the backlog of arms Taiwan has paid for and not received; and that its president has done what earlier administrations promised Taipei they would never do, discuss the sales with Beijing.
Beijing's leaves out that the 1982 undertaking was tied to its own commitment to a peaceful solution, and that the missiles, ships and landing craft it has massed opposite the island are what every sale since has answered.
Taipei's leaves out that for twenty years it spent about two percent of output on defence while describing the threat as existential, and that its own parliament, under opposition control, cut and froze parts of the military budget in 2025.
The sceptics' leaves out that Beijing's condition for talks is accepting that Taiwan is part of China, which most of their own voters reject.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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United StatesAmerica will sell arms as long as Taiwan pays and will decide about fighting when the time comes, by its own interests. It took the chip factories it wanted. It paused the arms when it wanted a summit. A small place should not stake everything on a patron whose president calls it a bargaining chip, and should talk to the neighbour it cannot move away from.
