Taipei Times Cites Unnamed Official Saying Xi Made 'Little Progress' Pressing Trump on Taiwan Arms Sales

A Quote With No Address

Somewhere between the White House and Taipei, a phrase went missing its sender. On Sept 28, the Taipei Times reported that Xi Jinping made "little progress" pressing President Trump to cut arms sales to Taiwan^[1]. The line came from a single unnamed "national security official." No White House statement uses that phrase. No press release backs it up. The only thing the U.S. government said on the record about Taiwan arms that week was a denial — the State Department insisting there is "no offer or plan" to sell weapons to China^[5][6]. A claim about what didn't happen is not the same as a claim about what did, and untangling the two is most of this story.

What Both Governments Agree Happened

Start with the parts nobody disputes. Xi made a state visit to Washington last week, his first in 11 years, and met Trump at the White House on Thursday, Sept 24^[14][8]. The summit ran three days and ended Friday with no major public breakthrough on Taiwan^[2]. China's Xinhua reported that Xi asked the U.S. to "adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence" and to handle Taiwan "with prudence"^[3][4].

The concrete results were narrower than the rhetoric around them. The two sides extended their tariff truce by two months and opened a new communication channel on artificial intelligence^[14]. On Taiwan specifically, nothing changed in public. A $14 billion arms package for Taiwan has sat on hold since May, when Trump called it a "very good negotiating chip" after an earlier meeting with Xi in Beijing^[5][11]. As of Sept 28, it's still on hold. Trump hasn't said anything publicly about Taiwan since the summit ended^[2].

There's also a fact that complicates the "little progress" framing before it even gets going: the U.S. isn't withholding all arms. An $11.1 billion sale to Taiwan, approved back in December, stands untouched^[5]. Whatever leverage Trump is holding in reserve, it's the $14 billion package specifically, not U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a category.

One Word, Two Meanings

Underneath the diplomatic fog sits a genuine mechanism worth understanding, because it's what the whole fight over "little progress" is actually about. For decades, U.S. policy has said Washington "does not support" Taiwan independence. That phrasing is deliberately non-committal — it leaves open what Taiwan's political future should be, without the U.S. taking a side.

"Oppose" is a different word doing different work. If the U.S. said it "opposes" Taiwan independence, that would put Washington actively against one specific outcome, not just neutral on the question. That's the shift Xi pushed for at the summit^[3][16]. It sounds like a small edit. It isn't. Whether Washington keeps its ambiguous wording or tightens it is, in Beijing's eyes, a real measure of whether the U.S. is keeping decades-old promises — and in Taipei's eyes, a real measure of whether the U.S. is caving. No public change in wording happened at the summit^[3][7]. That's the fact search for "little progress" is really standing in for.

Why Trump Can Freeze a Sale Nobody Says He'll Cancel

There's a structural tension here that explains why this keeps happening. The White House alone decides when to formally notify Congress of an arms sale — that's the mechanism that lets Trump treat the $14 billion package as a bargaining chip in the first place. But the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, plus a set of 1982 "Six Assurances," were written specifically to keep Taiwan's arms supply separate from whatever else the U.S. and China are negotiating^[15][11]. Trump's hold puts those two things in direct tension: the tool that gives him leverage is the same tool Congress meant to insulate from leverage.

Beijing, for its part, argues from a different document. China points to a 1982 joint communiqué it reads as a U.S. promise to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan over time. In Beijing's telling, each new sale — including December's $11.1 billion package — breaks that promise^[10][2]. Washington doesn't accept that reading, but it's the legal and historical hook behind Xi's request that the U.S. "handle Taiwan with prudence."

Both governments also want the same thing badly enough to paper over the disagreement for now: a stable trade relationship, including the flow of Chinese rare-earth minerals the U.S. needs. That shared interest is a big part of why the summit produced a tariff truce extension and an AI channel, but no open break over Taiwan^[14][12].

Three Governments, Three Headlines

The most revealing thing about this story might be how differently each side's press wrote it up, because each outlet is reporting a genuinely different summit. Taiwan's own security officials, speaking to friendly local outlets, describe a U.S. that held firm — hence "little progress" made its way into a headline at all^[1][9]. Chinese state media describe a summit where Xi set the terms, leading not with Taipei's spin but with Xi's own "oppose independence" request front and center^[4][2].

The Trump administration, notably, said almost nothing on Taiwan directly. Instead, the weekend's actual news cycle got hijacked by a different remark: Ambassador David Perdue told Fox News Sunday that Trump asked Xi whether China wanted to buy U.S. weapons^[5]. The State Department had to respond with a flat denial — no offer, no plan, and U.S. law bars such sales anyway^[5][7]. Perdue also noted Trump has approved more arms sales to Taiwan than any president since 1979, a point right-leaning outlets like the Daily Caller emphasized while treating the frozen $14 billion package as one line item among several^[12].

Left-leaning U.S. outlets read the same weekend differently. The Daily Beast headlined Perdue's remark "Trump's Wild Offer," treating it as closer to a real proposal than the State Department's denial suggested^[13]. CNN's analysis called the summit "heavy on pomp, light on substance" and argued that suits Beijing just fine^[8]. Reuters, by contrast, stuck to attributed, on-the-record framing — Taipei's view, Beijing's view, and the plain fact that Trump hadn't commented — without adopting either side's read as its own^[2].

What Happens at APEC

Taiwan's government isn't waiting quietly. Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu argued that arming Taiwan serves U.S. interests as much as Taiwan's own, tying the island's self-defense to its role supplying the world's computer chips^[2]. Taiwanese officials say they don't expect the U.S. to cancel the $14 billion package outright^[9] — a milder claim than "little progress," and one worth keeping separate from it.

Critics in the U.S., across both parties in Congress, argue that treating the package as a "negotiating chip" already concedes something to Beijing that the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances were designed to prevent^[11][15]. They have limited formal power to force a decision, since the timing is the executive branch's call^[11]. The next moment Xi gets to raise the issue again in person is the APEC summit in November. Until then, the package sits where it's sat since May: approved by no one, canceled by no one, and described very differently depending on which government's spokesperson you ask.