Insiders Say China’s Xi Believes He Can Secure Deal With Trump on Taiwan: China Observer

Beijing is trying to offer Trump a deal in exchange for concessions it wants on Taiwan, a CCP insider tells Yuan Hongbing.

Two KH-6 Fast Attack Missile Boats sail in formation during a combat readiness exercise at the Zuoying Naval Base in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Jan. 9, 2025. I-Hwa Cheng/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants to strike a deal with the Trump administration, with Xi reportedly willing to pay a heavy price if he can win U.S. support for its unification with Taiwan, according to insider sources who talked to China observer and leading pro-democracy figure Yuan Hongbing.

Renowned Chinese dissident Yuan Hongbing, who maintains communications inside China’s top political circles, told The Epoch Times on Jan. 20 that Xi is plotting to achieve his goal of a so-called “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan.

Yuan’s sources are considered mainly to be divided into two groups: conscience-driven individuals from within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system, who advocate for democracy and seek to overthrow the communist regime; and the “Red Second Generation,” who are descendants of high-ranking CCP officials or revolutionary leaders who oppose Xi’s personal dictatorship, including members of CCP elite families who have been persecuted by the regime and harbor deep hatred toward Xi.

The former Beijing University law professor living in Australia said that his intelligence on this topic has been corroborated independently by these two groups, which gives him some confidence in their insight to understand the specific plans that Xi plans to offer Trump.

Yuan’s conscience-driven source revealed that during an internal CCP meeting, Xi explained his plan to use the Taiwan issue as leverage in negotiations with Trump. Xi told officials that if they could resolve the Taiwan issue in line with the CCP’s interests, it would be a milestone marking the “rise of the East and the decline of the West.”

Yuan said one of his Red Second Generation sources told him Xi has “a general principle for dealing with Trump: ‘Use great struggles to accumulate strength, and then negotiate from that position of strength.’”

China is currently facing countless points of tension and tough negotiations with the United States, including on Panama, TikTok, Trump’s threat of tariffs, and many other issues.

However, the source said he believes Xi’s plan will fail. They said that after 12 years of failures under Xi’s governance, with many unfinished projects that Xi personally commanded, Xi’s plan to negotiate a deal with Trump for the reunification of Taiwan will likely be another futile attempt.

Yuan agreed that Xi’s plot is unlikely to succeed, no matter what is offered to Trump.

Xi’s push for global communist expansion led by the CCP, with the annexation of a free Taiwan as a key pillar to that plan, is fundamentally opposed to Trump’s vow to “Make America Great Again” and lead the world to peace through strength, Yuan said.

Trump recently declared in his speech at the Commander-in-Chief Inaugural Ball: “Through our power and might, we will lead the world to peace. Our friends will respect us, our enemies will fear us, and the whole world will admire the unrivaled greatness of the United States military.”

Yuan said that, on the contrary, Xi’s plan will likely become another “unfinished project” that will lead to the downfall of the CCP’s tyranny itself.

Trump has also denied any discussions with Xi on the idea of the United States opposing Taiwan’s independence in exchange for brokering a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire.

“There are some reports that Xi might ask of you in order to give that help, pressure to disavow potential Taiwan independence,” a reporter asked when the president signed executive orders on Jan. 30.

“No, we never discussed it,” Trump said.

Taiwan as the Centerpiece of Xi’s Offer

Yuan’s sources said Xi told a December 2024 Politburo and an internal meeting of the National Security Commission of the Central Committee of the CCP that during his previous talks with former U.S. President Joe Biden, he explicitly requested the United States not only oppose Taiwan independence but also support cross-strait reunification. He reportedly made the same demand in his dealings with Trump.

The sources also said that Xi has tasked his diplomats with using private channels to ensure Trump’s team understands that as long as the United States supports “cross-strait reunification,” Beijing is willing to make significant concessions in other negotiations.

Yuan, who had direct contact with Xi Jinping in 1980s, believes that this is likely Xi’s preferred strategy for securing the CCP’s annexation of Taiwan.

Chinese legal expert Yuan Hongbing, in a file photo. Chen Ming/The Epoch Times

It is Xi’s judgment that if he can make a deal to convince the Trump administration on this issue, Xi believes this would have a powerful disintegrating effect on Taiwan’s military and society, Yuan said. This would be beneficial for the CCP in achieving what it calls the “first battle is the last battle” for the Taiwan Strait.

Yuan noted that the CCP has long claimed that the Taiwan issue is its core interest—its ultimate red line and bottom line. When Trump held a call with Xi ahead of his inauguration, Xi focused on framing the negotiations around resolving the Taiwan issue in a way acceptable to the CCP, which is the Chinese leader’s priority. This focus was echoed by Chinese state media reports, which focused on Xi’s comments on Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Trump had a U.S.-centric view on issues, posting on Truth Social that he had spoken with Xi Jinping to discuss their nations’ trade imbalances, the deadly fentanyl crisis in the United States, TikTok, and other issues.

It appears Xi also made efforts to turn down the temperature of U.S.-China hostility ahead of Trump’s inauguration. China’s state media outlets recently removed “anti-U.S.” reports and instead published articles promoting “China-U.S. friendship.”

While Trump invited Xi to attend his inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, Xi sent Vice President Han Zheng in his place. On the first day of Trump’s second term, the president did not implement a 60 percent tariff on China and paused the U.S. TikTok ban. However, he did express his dislike of Beijing’s influence over the Panama Canal during his inauguration speech.

The sources also told Yuan that various relevant Chinese national agencies had already begun implementing Xi’s core strategic plan for dealing with Trump’s administration as of December 2024.

Yuan gave an example, saying that Cambodia has now become a political, economic, and military colony of the CCP, completely following Beijing’s orders in foreign diplomacy. In December 2024, Cambodia allowed U.S. and Japanese warships to enter its South China Sea ports for the first time since 2016.

He said this was essentially a signal from the CCP to the Trump administration, suggesting that if the U.S. demonstrates sincerity in negotiating on Taiwan, the CCP is willing to make concessions, including on South China Sea issues with U.S. allies like Japan.

A Chinese PLA J-16 fighter jet flies in an undisclosed location in a file photo. Taiwan Ministry of Defense via AP

Promoting Anti-US Sentiment in Taiwan

Surrounding Xi’s core strategy to negotiate with Trump, Xi’s close confidant and head of the CCP’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Song Tao, has also made moves, Yuan noted.

In late December 2024, Song emphasized three points during the Taiwan Affairs Office’s 2025 work deployment: continuing support and encouragement of anti-U.S. sentiment within Taiwan to make skepticism of the United States the dominant social discourse; taking all necessary measures to prevent the Taiwan People’s Party from becoming irrelevant after the indictment of party leader Ko Wen-je, who recently resigned over bribery charges; and continuing to strengthen the power of the “Blue-White Coalition”—a coalition between the two major opposition parties in Taiwan, the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party—to further expand its strategic influence in the Taiwan Legislature to push back against the interests of the United States and Japan regarding Taiwan’s political direction to create the favorable conditions needed to realize Xi’s strategy of both confrontation and negotiation with the Trump administration.

The sources revealed that in late December 2024, Vice Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia held a military training meeting for senior officers in the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands, instructing them that in the event of major social unrest in Taiwan, the military must be ready to enter combat status at short notice.