China Hits Back as US Cools Taiwan’s Washington Access

China’s State Council Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said Wednesday that Taiwan’s ruling party will “run into walls everywhere” abroad, after reports that US officials had asked Taipei to scale back its visits to Washington—a request framed by US media as an effort to keep Taiwan from becoming a “stumbling block” to improving US-China ties.

Speaking at the TAO’s regular press conference on the morning of September 30, 2026, spokesperson Zhang Han addressed a question about a US media report that American officials had urged Taiwan officials to reduce their trips to the US capital, according to The Paper. Zhang said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities “obstinately persist in the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist position, vainly attempting to challenge the one-China principle in the international community—the result is only that they will run into walls everywhere.”

What Prompted the Exchange

The question stemmed from reporting attributed to The New York Times, which cited Ryan Hass—a former National Security Council China director now at the Brookings Institution—as saying that Trump administration officials had asked Taiwan officials to curtail their visits to Washington think tanks. Taiwan’s foreign ministry responded to that reporting on September 22, with spokesperson Hsiao Kuang-wei telling reporters he did not know the source of the claim, as ETtoday reported. Hsiao said Taiwanese officials still frequently travel to Washington for events, and that the ministry would continue to monitor US-China high-level interactions while maintaining communication with “all sectors and levels of the US side.”

The TAO’s comments landed in the immediate aftermath of a White House summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, held September 23–25, 2026. The meeting produced only limited results—an extension of the trade truce by two months and tariff cuts on roughly $30 billion of “non-sensitive goods”—with no concrete agreement on Taiwan, trade imbalances, or technology restrictions.

The Arms Sales Question

At the same press conference, Zhang also fielded a question about US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remark that selling weapons to Taiwan “means we have none,” and that US arms sales to the island must weigh America’s own defense needs. “We resolutely oppose any form of military contact between countries with diplomatic relations [with China] and the China Taiwan region,” Zhang said, per iFeng. He added that the DPP’s attempt to “rely on foreign forces to seek independence” and “seek independence through military means” would “only harm Taiwan and destroy Taiwan, and bring about their own destruction.”

The backdrop is a stalled US arms package worth about $14 billion, comprising missiles, counter-drone equipment, and air-defense systems. According to The New York Times, the package was drawn up by State Department officials and cleared by congressional leaders earlier in 2026, but has since remained stuck at the department. Trump previously approved a separate arms sale to Taiwan worth about $11 billion at the end of 2025, and—during a summit in Beijing in May 2026—described the pending package as a “very good negotiating chip” in dealings with China.

Washington’s position is complicated by the Taiwan Relations Act, under which the US is legally required to supply Taipei with sufficient defensive weaponry. After US Ambassador to China David Perdue told Fox News that Trump had at one point asked Xi whether China would like to buy American weapons, the White House said there were no plans to sell arms to China, and the State Department stated that “US law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.”

Reading the Signals

Visiting the summit last week, Xi urged Trump to “adhere to the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and handle the Taiwan issue prudently,” according to the Chinese official readout cited by The New York Times. US administrations have traditionally refused to state that they “oppose”—as distinct from “do not support”—Taiwan independence, and analysts said Xi’s phrasing was designed to suggest that Washington had moved closer to Beijing’s position.

Matt Pottinger, a former US deputy national security adviser now chairing the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ China program, told the Times that Xi “sees frequent meetings with the US president as an opportunity to probe for weak points in the American position.” Georgetown professor Evan Medeiros, a former Obama-era NSC Asia director, called the summit treatment of Xi “a historic recognition of China’s strength.” Wu Xinbo, a Fudan University scholar who advises China’s foreign ministry, told the paper that “in practice, the US should stop selling weapons to Taiwan and handle the Taiwan issue very prudently.”

Taiwan has sought to project calm. Hsiao said the US-Japan-Korea trilateral foreign ministers’ joint statement—reaffirming the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, opposing unilateral changes to the status quo, and supporting Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations—showed that Taiwan Strait security is a matter of broad international consensus. Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, Alexander Yui, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on September 27 that he was confident “the US position on Taiwan has not changed,” while pressing for the stalled $14 billion package to be delivered “as soon as possible.”

Why It Matters

Beijing’s response is consistent with long-standing TAO language rather than a sharp escalation. The phrase Zhang used—that challenging the one-China principle abroad leads only to “running into walls everywhere”—is a recurring formulation in TAO statements. What is notable is the timing: the remarks came days after a summit that, in Beijing’s telling, showed Washington edging toward the Chinese framing on Taiwan.

For analysts, the more consequential signal is what the reports of reduced Washington access imply about the American side. If US officials are indeed asking Taipei to keep a lower profile in the capital, that suggests Washington does not want Taiwan to complicate the US-China relationship during the current detente—a notable shift in the trilateral dynamic and a source of unease in Taiwan and across Asia.

The episode also underscores the centrality of the frozen arms package as a bargaining instrument. Trump has not approved the $14 billion sale, and analysts quoted by the Times said he is unlikely to do so before the end of the year, lest it upset Xi ahead of planned leaders’ meetings.

What to Watch

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi again at the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November 2026, with Xi expected to return to the US for the G20 in Florida in December. Whether Washington approves the stalled arms package—and whether Taipei’s access to Washington changes in practice—will be read in Beijing and Taipei alike as a measure of how much the US-China thaw is reshaping America’s commitments to the island. For now, Beijing is projecting confidence that Taiwan’s international space is narrowing, while Taipei insists its channels with Washington remain open.