China Morning Missive
For those of you keeping score at home, the TikTok deal is still outstanding. I would also make mention that the latest enforcement delay made by Trump expires on December 16th. It’s been nearly a full year since the Supreme Court ruled on the issue forcing either a ban or a divestiture.
The reason for raising this point is due to the headlines reporting on a call between Xi and Trump yesterday and, pending on the readout, a top priority was Taiwan. You may also recall my hammering of the point that the quid pro quo is TikTok for Taiwan. For all of the (numerous) claims by the Trump team that a deal to acquire the social media platform has been agreed to, it remains outstanding. Trump will be under increased pressure come mid-December. Any further delay will come with a political cost.
Taiwan has increasingly become a focus in the macro-tourist circles. No surprise given that there’s been a weeklong diplomatic flareup over Taiwan between Japan and China. The rhetoric has been pretty heated, but I’ve seen this movie many times before. China will just continue to be verbally belligerent and wait until there’s a new government in Tokyo. Considering recent political events, that would probably arrive in less than a year.
Still, the longer the Trump team chooses to remain silent on the issue of Taiwan the more difficult the entire situation will become. The idea, in my opinion, was for the two sides to play for time. That was the objective of the meeting last month in Busan. Japan’s Prime Minister just threw a spanner in the works and, in doing so, has Trump catching strays.
In the end though, it remains a very simple calculus. TikTok will receive final “approval” from Beijing the minute Trump publicly addresses the Taiwan issue.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/11/24/trump-xi-call-trade-taiwan-ukraine.html