Taiwan has done what Trump did not. It answered Xi Jinping.

Taipei rejected Xi's statements on Taiwan from his US visit and asserted that the Republic of China is a sovereign state. It added that the ROC and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other. The formula is old. Its timing is new, and the timing is the message.

Xi's one concrete ask in Washington was that Trump say the US opposes Taiwan independence. Trump did not say it. He did not refuse it either. The ask left the summit unanswered, and this desk has tracked that silence since the summit.

Taipei was not going to wait for the answer. A government that hears a claim of sovereignty over it from a foreign capital and says nothing has, in practice, agreed to the claim. Taiwan's response closes that door on its own account.

The Taiwan News account of the Taipei line adds a second point. Taiwan enjoys bipartisan support in the US Congress, the official said, and helping Taiwan strengthen its defence capabilities serves US interests. Read that as a message aimed at Washington, not Beijing. Taipei is reminding the legislature that the executive branch has left Xi's demand unanswered.

Beijing's reply came in hardware. On Tuesday Taiwan counted three PLA aircraft and six PLAN vessels around the island, one aircraft entering the south-west air defence zone. China's coast guard was also reported on patrol east of Taiwan. The numbers are modest. Beijing sent the same signal it sends every time Taipei speaks for itself.

The Asia News Network asked what it says that Trump and Xi barely discussed Taiwan.

If Taipei's rejection is the only formal answer Xi's demand receives, Beijing will spend the coming summits negotiating with a president who has declined to reply and a government he cannot move.