The United States is considering postponing the announcement of major arms sales to Taiwan until after November's Apec summit in Shenzhen, multiple sources told the South China Morning Post. The delay would keep a major weapons decision in the hands of Donald Trump while Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to travel to Washington next week for a state visit. Ordinary people in Taiwan, and everyone living under the shadow of great-power bargaining, get treated like pieces on a board.
The sources said there was a strong possibility US President Donald Trump could extend the delay through to the end of the year. They pointed to a planned bilateral meeting between the two leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and Xi's expected visit to Florida for the Group of 20 summit in December. The calendar of summits matters here because the machinery of state prefers choreography over clarity, and weapons sales can wait while leaders stage their photo ops.
One source said Trump was considering various options to postpone the signing of Taiwan arms sales, but the final outcome would be a "compromise between him, the China hawks and Taiwan's lobbyists". That line lays out the whole arrangement in plain language: a decision about militarization shaped by competing factions inside the same power structure, with lobbyists pressing for their slice and hawks demanding more escalation. The people most affected don't appear in that room.
Who Gets to Decide
The source said, "President Trump has considered delaying the [Taiwan] arms sales decision till end 2028 or January 2029, that is, towards the end of his current term. However, he faced very loud opposition from hawks after floating the idea." The quote shows the pressure points inside the apparatus. Trump can consider delay, but the hawks can shout him back toward the usual path of arming and confrontation. The public gets the spectacle of choice; the state gets to keep the monopoly on the decision.
The planned delay comes as Xi Jinping prepares to travel to Washington next week for a state visit. That visit, along with the planned meeting at the Apec summit in Shenzhen and Xi's expected trip to Florida for the Group of 20 summit in December, gives the whole affair the polished look of diplomacy. Beneath that polish sits the same old hierarchy: leaders negotiate, institutions posture, and ordinary people are left to absorb the consequences.
Summits for the Powerful, Costs for Everyone Else
The sources said Trump could push the delay through to the end of the year, tying the arms sales question to the Apec summit in Shenzhen and the Group of 20 summit in December. Those meetings are presented as milestones, but for people outside the summit circuit they function more like checkpoints in a managed contest between states. The weapons deal doesn't disappear. It just gets parked until the timing suits the people with the power to announce it.
The article's only direct account of the decision-making process comes from unnamed sources, which says plenty on its own. The public gets fragments. The lobbyists get access. The hawks get a voice. The rest get told to wait while the machinery sorts itself out behind closed doors.
The source's description of a possible "compromise between him, the China hawks and Taiwan's lobbyists" captures the arrangement without dressing it up. No grassroots voice appears in the process. No mutual aid network gets a seat. No one asks the people who would live with the consequences whether they want another round of arms sales folded into summit diplomacy.
The delay, if it happens, would not end the logic of the deal. It would only shift the timing, letting the state manage its own contradictions while the powerful trade pressure, leverage, and weapons on their preferred schedule.