Trump talks to Xi and Takaichi, but spat over Taiwan unlikely to be resolved soon

Back-to-back calls between U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of Japan and China have so far done little to defuse the diplomatic spat occurring between Beijing and Tokyo, as experts warn that a de-escalation of the crisis remains nowhere in sight.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi spoke with Trump on Tuesday, hours after he held a separate call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Takaichi, in remarks to the media after her call with Trump, said that she discussed China relations during their conversation. The flurry of calls followed a dispute triggered by Takaichi’s recent remarks over how Japan might respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Xi pressed Trump on Taiwan during their Monday call, urging Washington to help safeguard the international order post-World War Two, according to an official readout by China’s foreign ministry.

Trump, however, did not mention Taiwan in a Truth Social post after his call with Xi, simply saying that they discussed the war in Ukraine, fentanyl and soybeans, among other things. The U.S. President also said that he will visit Beijing in April , with Xi set to make a state visit to the U.S. later in 2026.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Xi had taken the unusual move of requesting for the call with Trump. 

Andy Rothman, founder of China advisory firm Sinology, pointed out that the Chinese statement emphasized Taiwan, suggesting that Xi would like Trump to use his influence with Takaichi to persuade her to tone down her rhetoric on cross-Strait issues.

Beijing has demanded that Takaichi retract her statement on Taiwan, but while the Japanese prime minister said she would avoid discussing specific scenarios in the future, she has not withdrawn her statement. 

“Takaichi cannot retract her statement and Beijing knows that. Takaichi’s sin was speaking with clarity for which Beijing is punishing her… As long as Takaichi remains prime minister, it’s hard to see relations improving much,” analysts David Boling and Jeremy Chan at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said.

Alice Han, Director for China at advisory firm Greenvale, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that Xi “prioritizes Taiwan as part of his legacy.”

On the other hand, Han said, the Trump administration is “far more reluctant” to sacrifice blood and treasure on the Taiwan question than his predecessors, preferring instead to focus on the trade relationship between Washington and Beijing. 

Beijing’s outreach to Washington represents an unusual diplomatic opening for Washington as it seeks U.S. intervention to rein in tensions with Japan, seeing little benefit in further escalation, analysts said.

However, Trump and the White House have stayed publicly silent.

“Trump’s silence on the Sino-Japanese spat must be unnerving to both Taipei and Tokyo,” said Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University. 

Beijing has sought to wield its economic influence against Tokyo, including restricting imports of Japanese seafood, advising its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan and urging those residing in the country to be extra vigilant. 

“If Beijing were to escalate and start using military coercion, then you’d see a much stronger response from Washington,” said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. 

But even as Beijing’s economic pressure on Tokyo builds, analysts say both sides have strong reasons to prevent the dispute from sliding into armed conflict.

“Both sides want to avoid a military clash, keeping the odds of an unintended conflict between China and Japan quite low,” the Eurasia Group analysts said.

However, they added that bilateral relations may not improve in the near term, citing past examples of Chinese economic coercion against South Korea and Australia, which took years to resolve. 

In 2017, South Korean products faced boycotts in China, group tours were banned, and a “soft ban” on K-pop content followed Seoul’s deployment of the U.S.′ Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system, also known as THAAD, on its soil the same year.

A day after China issued a travel alert for Japan, the Takaichi cabinet dispatched a senior foreign ministry official to Beijing in an attempt to ease tensions, but the trip yielded no results.

Beijing has made it clear that “there’s no room for compromise,” Thompson said. “We’re probably going to be living with this crisis for a little bit longer.”

— CNBC’s Martin Soong contributed to this report