The Daily Populous Thursday May 14th, 2026 evening edition
Authored by inews.co.uk and submitted by theipaper

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Forget, for a moment, the pageantry. The flag-waving children. The language of partnership and apparent mutual respect.

Because beneath the choreography in Beijing sat the subject Washington still prefers to discuss obliquely: the growing possibility that the United States and China are moving towards a confrontation over Taiwan. If anything, after this summit, that prospect feels less remote.

On one side of the vast table inside the Great Hall of the People sat an imposing leader accused of testing institutional limits, centralising power around himself and insisting only he could restore national greatness. A man who presents himself as something larger than a temporary steward of the state.

And opposite him sat Xi Jinping.

The symmetry was striking. But it only went so far. Trump arrived in Beijing with a squad of American executives and the instincts of a transactional politician. He spoke the language of chemistry, leverage and, as always, deals. For Xi, this summit was never fundamentally about tariffs or trade balances. It was about Taiwan.

This, for him, was not an “Art of the Deal” episode dressed in diplomatic costume. It was a warning. “The Taiwan issue is the most critical issue in China-US relations,” Xi said, according to Chinese state media. Mishandle it, he warned, and the two countries could “collide or even clash”, pushing relations into an “extremely dangerous situation”.

His remarks implied that he could at some point try to persuade Trump to reduce US arms sales to Taiwan, which relies on American political and military support.

Beijing sees Taiwan not as a distant aspiration, but as a medium-term and inevitable objective. Chinese officials have not ruled out the use of force. And while American presidents traditionally frame Taiwan as one issue among many in the relationship, for Xi it sits at the centre of China’s national story: the final unresolved question in what Beijing sees as the restoration of the Chinese state.

The two presidents, pictured reviewing the honour guard during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday, have very different perspectives on this meeting (Photo: Maxim Shemetov/AP)

Beneath this summit sat a deeper imbalance. Not simply of military power, but of time horizons.

When Trump delayed the meeting by two months to focus on the war with Iran, the postponement consumed headlines in Washington. Politically, it mattered. After all, it represented roughly 4 per cent of his presidential term. But to the leadership in Beijing, a system capable of thinking in decades rather than election cycles, it may barely have registered.

At the summit, Xi spoke about “our two peoples” and “the future of humanity”. Trump often framed the summit more personally: the meeting of two powerful men. “It’s an honour to be with you,” he told Xi. “It’s an honour to be your friend.”

Later, during their visit to the Temple of Heaven, the contrast felt almost too neat. Trump may have seen beauty and spectacle, the theatre of diplomacy. Xi almost certainly saw continuity: the physical expression of a civilisation that measures itself in centuries. Beside it, the United States, at barely a quarter of a millennium old, looks historically young.

Xi’s worldview is built around patience. The slow accumulation of leverage. The assumption that pressure, applied steadily enough, eventually reshapes reality. On Thursday, he invoked the ancient Greek historian Thucydides to describe the dangers that emerge when rising and established powers collide. He speaks in civilisational terms.

While the Trump administration works on cycles of outrage, Xi’s worldview is built around patience and the slow accumulation of leverage (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty)

“The world has come to a new crossroads,” he said. And if Beijing increasingly believes that crossroads leads through Taiwan, the implications stretch far. This would not be a contained regional dispute, or another distant conflict absorbed abroad purely through headlines.

Taiwan is the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing hub. Chips produced there are used in smartphones, cars, hospitals, satellites, data centres and advanced weapons systems. A war over Taiwan would not feel like a distant regional conflict when supply chains are fracturing across the world. Markets could convulse. Industries could stall. The economic shock would reach directly into homes in the United States and Europe, potentially dwarfing the disruptions caused by the wars in Ukraine or Iran.

And yet modern Western politics often struggles to operate on the terrain that Xi instinctively understands.

For the Trump administration, politics moves at the speed of outrage cycles, market reactions and social media clips. The tempo has accelerated during this second term, with governance shaped by zone-flooding announcements, algorithmic attention spans and the constant pressure of immediate reaction. That is democracy, of course: reactive by design, shaped by public mood and electoral pressure.

Perhaps there’s a reminder from Beijing for politicians here – and for those of us who report on them.

While Washington ricocheted between crises and viral moments, China’s position on Taiwan appeared almost unchanged and unchallenged. If anything, the prospect of confrontation appears to have grown clearer.

It could be the crisis that defines the second Trump presidency.

In an age where political dramas erupt and disappear during a single rush-hour commute, it is easy to mistake movement for history. But some of the forces shaping this century are moving slowly, over decades, gathering weight long before they arrive in full public view. The danger is not that we cannot see them. It is that we are too distracted to look up for long enough.

oritfx on May 14th, 2026 at 13:45 UTC »

My take is that Chinese culture leaves hints too subtle to be picked up by Trump, that's all there is to it. He'll go in with an assumption, won't pick up on any challenge to that assumption, leave thinking and announcing left-and-right that he's won yet again, only for the reality to never match any of his perceptions.

But his reality seems to be alternative to the common one. Surrounding oneself by a bunch of sycophants has a downside of never hearing bad news.

calmnutz on May 14th, 2026 at 12:50 UTC »

Expensive Cold War era arms are blasé anyway. Taiwan needs to develop its own arms industry, and partner with Ukraine to help them with drone tech.

theipaper on May 14th, 2026 at 12:27 UTC »

Full article: Forget, for a moment, the pageantry. The flag-waving children. The language of partnership and apparent mutual respect.

Because beneath the choreography in Beijing sat the subject Washington still prefers to discuss obliquely: the growing possibility that the United States and China are moving towards a confrontation over Taiwan. If anything, after this summit, that prospect feels less remote.

On one side of the vast table inside the Great Hall of the People sat an imposing leader accused of testing institutional limits, centralising power around himself and insisting only he could restore national greatness. A man who presents himself as something larger than a temporary steward of the state.

And opposite him sat Xi Jinping.

The symmetry was striking. But it only went so far. Trump arrived in Beijing with a squad of American executives and the instincts of a transactional politician. He spoke the language of chemistry, leverage and, as always, deals. For Xi, this summit was never fundamentally about tariffs or trade balances. It was about Taiwan.

This, for him, was not an “Art of the Deal” episode dressed in diplomatic costume. It was a warning. “The Taiwan issue is the most critical issue in China-US relations,” Xi said, according to Chinese state media. Mishandle it, he warned, and the two countries could “collide or even clash”, pushing relations into an “extremely dangerous situation”.

His remarks implied that he could at some point try to persuade Trump to reduce US arms sales to Taiwan, which relies on American political and military support.

Beijing sees Taiwan not as a distant aspiration, but as a medium-term and inevitable objective. Chinese officials have not ruled out the use of force. And while American presidents traditionally frame Taiwan as one issue among many in the relationship, for Xi it sits at the centre of China’s national story: the final unresolved question in what Beijing sees as the restoration of the Chinese state.

Beneath this summit sat a deeper imbalance. Not simply of military power, but of time horizons.

When Trump delayed the meeting by two months to focus on the war with Iran, the postponement consumed headlines in Washington. Politically, it mattered. After all, it represented roughly 4 per cent of his presidential term. But to the leadership in Beijing, a system capable of thinking in decades rather than election cycles, it may barely have registered.

At the summit, Xi spoke about “our two peoples” and “the future of humanity”. Trump often framed the summit more personally: the meeting of two powerful men. “It’s an honour to be with you,” he told Xi. “It’s an honour to be your friend.”

Later, during their visit to the Temple of Heaven, the contrast felt almost too neat. Trump may have seen beauty and spectacle, the theatre of diplomacy. Xi almost certainly saw continuity: the physical expression of a civilisation that measures itself in centuries. Beside it, the United States, at barely a quarter of a millennium old, looks historically young.

Xi’s worldview is built around patience. The slow accumulation of leverage. The assumption that pressure, applied steadily enough, eventually reshapes reality. On Thursday, he invoked the ancient Greek historian Thucydides to describe the dangers that emerge when rising and established powers collide. He speaks in civilisational terms.

“The world has come to a new crossroads,” he said. And if Beijing increasingly believes that crossroads leads through Taiwan, the implications stretch far. This would not be a contained regional dispute, or another distant conflict absorbed abroad purely through headlines.

Taiwan is the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing hub. Chips produced there are used in smartphones, cars, hospitals, satellites, data centres and advanced weapons systems. A war over Taiwan would not feel like a distant regional conflict when supply chains are fracturing across the world. Markets could convulse. Industries could stall. The economic shock would reach directly into homes in the United States and Europe, potentially dwarfing the disruptions caused by the wars in Ukraine or Iran.

And yet modern Western politics often struggles to operate on the terrain that Xi instinctively understands.

For the Trump administration, politics moves at the speed of outrage cycles, market reactions and social media clips. The tempo has accelerated during this second term, with governance shaped by zone-flooding announcements, algorithmic attention spans and the constant pressure of immediate reaction. That is democracy, of course: reactive by design, shaped by public mood and electoral pressure.

Perhaps there’s a reminder from Beijing for politicians here – and for those of us who report on them.

While Washington ricocheted between crises and viral moments, China’s position on Taiwan appeared almost unchanged and unchallenged. If anything, the prospect of confrontation appears to have grown clearer.

It could be the crisis that defines the second Trump presidency.

In an age where political dramas erupt and disappear during a single rush-hour commute, it is easy to mistake movement for history. But some of the forces shaping this century are moving slowly, over decades, gathering weight long before they arrive in full public view. The danger is not that we cannot see them. It is that we are too distracted to look up for long enough.