1 Risks rise for Beijing as Trump and Putin begin talks without the PRC to end Ukraine war
Trump and Putin agree to start talks to end Ukraine war
Feb. 12
1. President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have agreed to immediately start negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. “I believe this effort will lead to a successful conclusion, hopefully soon!” Trump wrote.
Trump described his phone call with Putin as “lengthy and highly productive.” Trump said they reflected on the history of their respective nations and discussed their nations’ strengths and “the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.” But Trump said they would have to stop the war in Ukraine first. “President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of, “COMMON SENSE.” We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations,” Trump wrote.
2. Speaking in Brussels, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.” He added that any security guarantees offered to Ukraine “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” and the U.S. will not deploy troops to Ukraine. Hegseth also said that the prospect of Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective.”
Hegseth further said that the U.S. faces “a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail.”
Feb. 13
1. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said Ukraine would be involved during any peace negotiations with Russia. “They’re part of it. We would have Ukraine, and we have Russia, and we’ll have other people involved, a lot of people,” Trump said.
2. Speaking at the end of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, Secretary Hegseth said that “everything is on the table” in negotiations to bring peace to Ukraine. Hegseth also said that the U.S. was no longer “primarily focused” on European security.
China to play ‘peacemaker’ in Ukraine?
Feb. 13
The Wall Street Journal reported that PRC officials have in recent weeks floated a proposal to the Trump team through intermediaries between Trump and Putin to hold a summit between the two leaders and facilitate peacekeeping efforts in Ukraine, citing people in Beijing and Washington familiar with the matter. However, the PRC’s offer is being met with skepticism in the U.S. and Europe given “deep concerns over the increasingly close ties between Beijing and Moscow,” according to the Journal.
The PRC offer proposes a U.S.-Russian summit without involving Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The proposal also does not commit Beijing to reduce its economic support for Moscow. The White House did not confirm to the Journal whether it had received the PRC offer, but said it was “not viable at all.”
The Journal also reported that Xi Jinping does not want the PRC’s help to end the Russia-Ukraine war to compromise Communist China’s close relationship with Russia, citing “people familiar with Beijing’s thinking.”
Feb. 15
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, PRC foreign minister Wang Yi said, “We hope that all parties and stakeholders directly involved [in the Russia-Ukraine conflict] participate in the peace talks in due course.”
Wang said that the PRC “views all efforts dedicated to peace positively, including any consensus reached by the United States and Russia on peace talks.” Also, “as the war is taking place on European soil, it is all the more necessary for Europe to play its part for peace, to jointly address the root causes of the crisis, to find a balanced, effective and sustainable security framework, and to achieve long-term peace and stability in Europe.”
Backdrop
Tariffs
Feb. 11
President Trump raised tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from all countries to the U.S. to 25 percent “without exceptions or exemptions,” up from the previous rate of 10 percent. Trump’s tariffs would take effect on March 4.
Feb. 13
Trump signed a memo ordering his economics team to come up with plans for reciprocal tariffs on every country taxing U.S. imports.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “On trade, I have decided for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less.”
Increased military sales to India
Feb. 13
In a press conference with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, President Trump said that the U.S. will increase military sales to India starting in 2025, including eventually providing India with F-35 fighter jets.
Trump also said that both countries reached an agreement that includes India importing more U.S. oil and gas to lower the trade deficit between the two countries.
Canadian premiers paint China as ‘common economic enemy’
Week of Feb. 10
All 13 of Canada’s premiers traveled to Washington to lobby the Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers against imposing tariffs.
Speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Feb. 11, Ontario premier Doug Ford said that “Canada is here to help” the U.S. decouple from “China and its global proxies.” Ford described China as a “common economic enemy” and said that Canada could adopt measures such as helping to end Chinese transshipments through Mexico, matching or exceeding U.S. tariffs on mainland products (including electric vehicles, batteries, aluminum, and steel), putting up protections against Chinese investment and ownership in strategic sectors like energy and critical minerals, and having a “robust” coordinated investment-screening process.
“It’s China that wants to ship in cheap steel, cheap aluminum and undermine American and Canadian jobs. Let’s work together and protect ourselves from the likes of China,” Ford said.
Our take
1. It is presently unclear whether the Trump administration will involve the PRC in negotiations or arrangements to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But Beijing’s outreach to Washington to play “peacemaker” (per The Wall Street Journal’s reporting) and the White House’s rejection of the offer—coupled with the Trump-Putin agreement to immediately begin peace negotiations with Ukraine’s involvement—bode ill for the CCP regime’s diplomatic efforts, and offer some indication about the limits of its partnership with Russia.
We believe that whether or not the PRC gets to play a significant role in Ukraine peace negotiations hinges on Putin’s willingness to end the war.
Should Putin want an end to the war and if his terms are met, Beijing could find itself almost entirely sidelined from the peace talks and process. In such a scenario, it is not implausible that President Trump would later build on renewed U.S.-Russian relations to do a “reverse Nixon,” or split Beijing and Moscow with the end goal of gaining a substantial edge over the PRC in great power competition. Trump and his senior officials have indicated that they consider Communist China to be America’s top strategic threat, and would be searching for arrangements that allow the U.S. to pivot away from Europe and other global hotspots to focus on the Indo-Pacific. A “reverse Nixon” could also be appealing to Putin as Russia and China are natural and historical geopolitical rivals; Moscow’s participation in a “reverse Nixon” in any form, however, does not mean that it will outright abandon its “friendship” with the PRC.
Meanwhile, the PRC could be tapped to be a “peacemaker” of varying importance should Putin want to end the war but the Trump administration proves unable to acquiesce to some of his key demands. In this scenario, the Xi leadership could look to either endear itself with Washington and help pressure Putin to meet Trump’s terms, or side with Russia to get Trump to give Putin what he wants. Either way, as regards negotiations to end the Ukraine war, the PRC does not want to be completely on the outside looking in, as it would miss out on opportunities to strengthen ties with Russia, rebuild relations with the U.S., lower the intensity of Sino-U.S. tensions, and prevent the potential formation of a U.S.-Russia partnership to counter Communist China.
Beijing would much prefer a situation where Putin has no desire to end the war in Ukraine. In this scenario, the U.S. would be forced to seriously consider tapping the PRC to play “peacemaker” and would therefore be disincentivized from pressuring the CCP regime too hard on trade, technology, drugs, national security, and other crucial matters of geopolitical competition. Beijing would then exploit Moscow’s recalcitrance to “delay and wait for change” against the U.S. and starve off at least one key external crisis facing the regime.
2. The PRC would find its geopolitical risks sharply increased if it has minimal or no role to play in negotiations to end the Ukraine war and becomes increasingly ostracized by countries that are willing to get tough on China in the hopes of winning favor with the Trump administration and avoiding steep tariffs. Worse for the CCP, it cannot make too many compromises with the U.S. to sidestep tariffs without abandoning its “fundamental principles” and running into ideological contradictions that would heighten political risks for the Xi leadership.
To mitigate growing geopolitical pressure, Xi Jinping would be forced to alter the PRC’s geopolitical ambitions in general and back away from strategic competition with the United States. But Xi would find it nearly impossible to take those steps without backtracking on the direction that he has set the CCP on during his three years in office and undermining his “quan wei” in the process.
2 Mass recall, exposure of united front efforts in Taiwan weaken the CCP’s leverage over the island
Since late December 2024, several incidents in Taiwan saw the exposure of the CCP’s infiltration of Taiwan society and efforts to exploit the ROC’s democratic institutions. This led to a pushback that appears to have left Beijing scrambling to salvage the situation.
CCP infiltration uncovered
‘Naturalizing’ ROC citizens
Dec. 28
Taiwanese anti-CCP influencer Ba Jiong released a documentary series exposing the CCP united front on his YouTube channel. In the series, Taiwanese rapper Chen Boyuan, who previously worked on CCP propaganda efforts, went undercover in an entrepreneurship park in Fujian Province with a photographer to expose a united front scheme to incentivize ROC citizens into acquiring PRC citizenship.
The documentary said that the CCP would attempt to attract Taiwanese residents to apply for a PRC identity card online, which makes them eligible to apply for loans of up to 10 million yuan on the mainland. Taiwanese residents with PRC ID cards can then transfer such loans out from the PRC through cross-border e-commerce services, underground exchanges, and other methods. Meanwhile, Chinese personnel handling the transactions (including bank managers) reportedly take a 50 percent commission on those 10 million yuan loans.
The documentary said over 200,000 Taiwanese have reportedly obtained such PRC ID cards.
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When asked to comment on the issue, the ROC Ministry of Interior said it was unable to determine the exact number of people who acquired PRC ID cards. Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council said that per cross-strait relations regulations, ROC citizens who apply for household residency on the mainland or obtain a PRC passport will lose their ROC citizenship and have their ROC household residency canceled.
Fifth column exposed
Jan. 8
Taiwanese media Mirror Weekly reported that the Taichung High Prosecutor’s Office indicted Qu Hongyi, the chairman of the pro-PRC organization Rehabilitation Alliance (復康聯盟黨), along with seven retired ROC military officers, for violating Taiwan’s national security act.
Prosecutors found that Qu, who previously ran for the Legislative Yuan but lost, received financial support from a CCP-affiliated organization called the “Shenzhen New Fourth Army Research Association,” recruited multiple retired military personnel, and secretly formed a sniper team to act as internal operatives for the CCP in a potential future invasion of Taiwan.
Ko Wen-je has ‘direct line to Xi’s office’?
Feb. 11
Mirror Weekly reported that Taiwan’s prosecution authorities found that Li Wenzong, the chief of staff of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, and former deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council Zhang Xianyao had frequent communication in 2023, during the campaign period for the 2024 Taiwan presidential election.
According to Mirror Weekly, Zhang told Li that he had met with officials from Xi Jinping’s office and Song Tao, the director of the PRC Taiwan Affairs Office. Zhang also sought to facilitate cooperation between Ko Wen-je and Foxconn founder Terry Gou while pushing for Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hou Yu-ih to withdraw from the presidential race. Zhang also reportedly told Li that the PRC viewed Ko’s candidacy positively, and Li relayed this information to Ko.
Ko Wen-je’s Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) later stated that Mirror Weekly was using unverifiable text messages to smear Ko as “pro-CCP.”
Pro-CCP legislators face backlash
Legislative Yuan freezes central govt budget
Jan. 21
When passing the 2025 central government budget, ROC opposition lawmakers joined forces to cut the Executive Yuan’s proposed central government budget by 6.6 percent (NT$207.5 billion) and froze an additional NT$260 billion. While this represented the largest budget reduction in Taiwan’s history, the final budget still stood at a record high of NT$2.925 trillion.
ROC premier Cho Jung-tai criticized the opposition for “excessive and reckless” budget cuts. Meanwhile, the KMT said that the legislature must strictly oversee the budget on behalf of the people.
2025 ROC mass recall movement
In 2024, ROC opposition lawmakers from KMT and the TPP leveraged their numerical advantage to forcibly pass all bills proposed during the 11th Legislative Yuan. This led to a backlash, with civic groups launching recall campaigns against some KMT legislators as early as October 2024.
In January 2025, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus leader Ko Chien-ming called for a mass recall effort against Legislative Yuan speaker Han Kuo-yu and 41 KMT district legislators. In response, the KMT launched counter-recall efforts against DPP lawmakers before expanding those efforts to include local government officials and council members. The move to recall officials by the “blue” (KMT) and “green” (DPP) camps resulted in a nationwide mass recall movement.
As of Feb. 13, Taiwan’s Central Election Commission had received 54 recall petitions, including:
- 51 petitions targeting legislators (KMT: 34, DPP: 16)
- A petition targeting Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao Hung-an.
- Petitions targeting Nantou County councilors Tsai Ming-hsuan and Chen Yu-ling
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The recall process of lawmakers in Taiwan consists of two phases:
- Petition phase: Requires signatures from 10 percent of eligible voters in the electoral district to move the recall to the next phase.
- Voting phase: The recall passes if there are more valid votes in favor of the recall than against, and if the number of “yes” votes exceeds 25 percent of all eligible voters in the district.
The recall process for legislative speakers and deputy speakers, as well as representative council chairs and vice chairs in Taiwan consists of the following steps:
- One-third of legislators or representatives initiate a petition.
- A vote of among legislators or representatives where:
- A majority must be present.
- At least two-thirds of attendees must vote in favor of the recall to pass.
CCP gets countries to back its sovereignty over Taiwan
Feb. 9
The Economist reported that 70 countries have officially endorsed the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan and that the PRC is entitled to use “all” efforts to achieve unification without noting that those efforts should be peaceful. The Economist added that most of those 70 countries adopted the new wording in the past 18 months after a “Chinese diplomatic offensive across the global south.”
In concluding, The Economist wrote, “It has been hard enough for the West to sustain international solidarity with Ukraine, whose sovereignty was not in dispute before Russia invaded. The battle for global support on Taiwan will be even harder-fought. And China is already on the advance.”
Xi reportedly furious over Taiwan work failure
Feb. 13
Yuan Hongbing, an Australia-based Chinese dissident and jurist with channels to sources inside the CCP, told Dajiyuan (the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times) that one of the hottest rumors circulating in Beijing’s political circles is that Xi Jinping harshly reprimanded Taiwan Affairs Office director Song Tao over his department’s powerlessness in countering the ongoing mass recall movement in Taiwan.
Yuan said that Xi previously instructed officials to disrupt Taiwan’s legislative process. This includes influencing the Legislative Yuan to pass a series of unconstitutional and destabilizing bills aimed at weakening ROC president William Lai Ching-te’s administrative efficiency and governing capacity. However, the mass recall movement in Taiwan could permanently eliminate the KMT’s chances of regaining political power in China (therefore affecting the CCP’s “reunification” plans for Taiwan).
Yuan said Xi has allocated two special emergency funds to address the Taiwan matter and ordered the Taiwan Affairs Office to take immediate action. One of the funds is reportedly being directly funneled via Taiwanese business networks (bypassing bureaucratic channels) toward supporting KMT legislators facing a recall. Concurrently, Beijing is mobilizing its united front networks in Taiwan to suppress and neutralize the mass recall movement.
Big picture
The Xi leadership continues to struggle to revive China’s rapidly deteriorating economy and handle growing geopolitical pressures against the PRC as countries take steps to address the CCP threat.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has used tariffs and diplomacy to get countries aligned with U.S. interests. The Trump administration is also moving rapidly to bring peace to the Middle East and Ukraine, with the PRC seemingly being left on the sidelines of negotiations pertaining to the conflicts in those regions.
Our take
The above developments indicate that Beijing is losing political and economic leverage over Taiwan, with negative consequences for the CCP’s “Taiwan unification” agenda.
1. The CCP’s attempt to influence the ROC legislature, the PRC ID scheme and other united front efforts, and Xi Jinping’s alleged anger at the PRC’s Taiwan affairs apparatus suggest that the Xi leadership currently still prefers the “peaceful reunification” approach to taking Taiwan as opposed to an invasion. Beijing has long opted for “peaceful reunification” to avoid the steep downsides of military action, including the risk of a failed invasion, a potential war with the U.S. and its allies over Taiwan, international sanctions, and the high costs of invasion and occupation. While the CCP has scored some successes in advancing “peaceful reunification” (the most troubling of which is impeding the William Lai administration’s governance through the legislature), the Taiwanese people’s growing awareness of its actions to undermine the ROC have led to pushback in recent months that is paring back the CCP’s earlier results.
Concurrently, the CCP has been laying the groundwork for “armed reunification” if necessary. This is seen through moves like recruiting former Taiwan military personnel to undertake covert operations in the event of an invasion, influencing countries to endorse the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan and “unification” agenda, and the constant seeding of pro-CCP narratives in the public discourse to undermine international solidarity against the PRC should it resort to kinetic means to take Taiwan in the future. The exposure of the CCP’s “armed reunification” preparations serve to nullify them or reduce their effectiveness.
2. The mass recall movement in Taiwan could severely weaken the CCP’s ability to influence ROC politics if it results in the removal of Legislative Yuan speaker Han Kuo-yu and many other pro-PRC politicians. The continued spotlighting of CCP united front operations in Taiwan and growing anti-CCP sentiments among the Taiwanese citizenry could also see the DPP and anti-CCP opposition politicians gain more seats in the legislature.
The mass recall movement also presents risks for the ruling DPP and the anti-CCP movement in Taiwan. DPP legislators have been targeted by counter-recall efforts, with some DPP officials facing allegations of being seriously corrupt or overseeing governance failures. The CCP is also likely to pour resources into the counter-recall efforts to bring the Legislative Yuan more firmly under its influence. At the very least, the CCP would want to stoke political chaos in Taiwan to impede the William Lai administration’s governing efficiency and capacity. However, it is likely that the harder and more obviously the CCP attempts to undermine ROC politics, the more pushback it will encounter from Taiwanese society.
3. As the CCP loses its ability to influence and subvert Taiwan, it would become more inclined to choose military over “peaceful” means to achieve its “reunification” agenda. That being said, Beijing does not have favorable conditions to consider an invasion for at least the next couple of years (even up to and beyond 2027, or the year that Xi reportedly wants the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan):
- The Chinese economy is rapidly worsening and could deteriorate much more precipitously in supporting an invasion of Taiwan and dealing with the international blowback.
- The Xi leadership’s “self-rectification” campaign inside the PLA is still ongoing and Xi Jinping would not trust his generals enough at present to give them command over combat-equipped troops (which could easily be turned against Zhongnanhai to dispose of Xi). Even if Beijing concludes the anti-corruption effort early, the PLA would require time for new senior officials to find their feet before an invasion can be launched.
- China’s demographic problem would greatly worsen and its economic competitiveness would be seriously impacted if the flower of China’s youth are bled out in taking Taiwan and fighting the militaries of countries that come to Taiwan’s aid.
- President Donald Trump is working to conclude conflicts in Europe and the Middle East in preparation to pivot to the Indo-Pacific and focus on the security challenges posed by the CCP. While Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Taiwanese goods like semiconductors, the ROC will ultimately benefit more than it loses when the Trump administration tightens its screws on mainland China. The Trump administration is also unlikely to provoke Beijing into taking Taiwan by crossing the CCP’s “red lines” (particularly supporting “Taiwan independence”) on the issue; if anything, Beijing could find a measure of reassurance in Trump’s willingness to “get tough” on Taiwan on trade and other matters instead of showing unusual favor to the ROC.
- Despite the CCP’s constant propaganda and influence efforts, the international community has been viewing the prospect of a PLA invasion of Taiwan with utmost concern and seriousness since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Countries that currently endorse the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan could also change their stance in the event of an invasion.
