{"id":171297,"date":"2023-10-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=926316"},"modified":"2023-10-27T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:00:00","slug":"taiwan-election-may-open-window-for-better-china-ties-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/10\/27\/taiwan-election-may-open-window-for-better-china-ties-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan election may open window for better China ties, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Taiwan\u2019s presidential election in January is a window of opportunity to resume dialogue between Taipei and Beijing, reduce tensions and lower the risk of conflict, an NGO has said.
\nA war over Taiwan is not inevitable but \u201cthe current trajectory is dangerous\u201d, a report by the International Crisis Group says.
\nTaiwan is now considered the greatest potential flashpoint for conflict between China and the US, which is Taiwan\u2019s strongest supporter. The report calls for all parties to take a step back, clarify their positions and \u201cre-establish a baseline level of trust\u201d.
\nThe government of China, led by Xi Jinping, considers Taiwan to be a Chinese province and has insisted it will be \u201creunified\u201d. It seeks to achieve this by peaceful means but has not ruled out using force.
\nTaiwan\u2019s government, led by the Democratic Progress party\u2019s Tsai Ing-wen, says Taiwan is already a sovereign nation, and its people overwhelmingly reject the prospect of Chinese rule in favour of the complicated but peaceful status quo. Recent polling by Taiwan\u2019s mainland affairs council found 85.3% of the public were opposed to Beijing\u2019s proposal of \u201cone country, two systems\u201d.
\nBeijing cut off all dialogue with Taipei after Tsai\u2019s election in 2016 in response to the DPP\u2019s position. It has spent years actively deepening Taiwan\u2019s international isolation and punishing it economically, which has only strengthened Taiwanese opposition to unification, leaving the two sides at a dangerous impasse.
\nTsai will step down early next year at the end of her second and final term, and the report says the handover could present \u201ca window of opportunity to resume cross-strait dialogue\u201d. In the event of a DPP victory \u2013 noting that the opposition KMT already has \u201can understanding\u201d with Beijing \u2013 the report advises the two sides to find a \u201cmutually acceptable political formulation\u201d of the cross-strait relationship.
\nChina\u2019s president, Xi Jinping, with his US counterpart, Joe Biden. Washington also has a part to play in reducing tensions over Taiwan, the report says. Photograph: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty
\nHowever, if this were a bridge too far under current hostilities, a new DPP government could identify other areas to restart dialogue as incentives for Beijing, in return for a reduction in economic, military and political pressure. At the same time, Taiwan had to improve its defences in order to provide \u201ca credible threat that China will be biting off more than it can chew if it pursues invasion\u201d.
\nBeijing has increased its military and coercive actions towards Taiwan, including rehearsals of an attack on Taiwan, cyber-attacks and drastically scaling up its People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) incursions into Taiwan\u2019s air defence identification zone. On Monday, Taiwan\u2019s defence ministry reported that PLA aircraft had carried out multiple operations, including an encirclement of the main island.
\nThe report says the US, which provides weapons to Taiwan for its self-defence and has become more vocally supportive, also has a part to play in reducing tensions. It notes high-level meetings between officials, and US politicians who it says are scoring political points with increasingly hawkish stances. It says Washington\u2019s recent behaviour \u201cmay well be making conflict more likely\u201d.
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\n\u201cA Chinese invasion of Taiwan is unlikely any time soon, but the risk of conflict is rising,\u201d says the report by the International Crisis Group\u2019s senior China analyst, Amanda Hsiao.
\n\u201cManaging it requires the parties to re-establish a baseline level of trust by shoring up longstanding political understandings. Washington should credibly assure Beijing that it does not seek to keep Taiwan permanently separated from the mainland. Taipei should credibly assure Beijing that it does not seek formal independence. Beijing should credibly assure Washington and Taipei that it has not decided to unify with Taiwan through military force.\u201d
\nAdditional research by Chi Hui Lin<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taiwan\u2019s presidential election in January is a window of opportunity to resume dialogue between Taipei and Beijing, reduce tensions and lower the risk of conflict, an NGO has said.
\nA war over Taiwan is not inevitable but \u201cthe current trajectory is dan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,144,586,113,194,106,64,100],"tags":[10355,10320,3472,10331,10315,2240,6609,2492,10351,10336,2972],"class_list":["post-171297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beijing","category-china","category-economy","category-google","category-news-chinese-law","category-search-engine","category-taiwan","category-website","tag-army","tag-biden","tag-chinese","tag-elections","tag-media-intelligence","tag-military","tag-pla","tag-taipei","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171298,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171297\/revisions\/171298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}