The Washington Post reports on the third straight victory of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party in its presidential election, and the fallout for Beijing:
Taiwanese voters have made it clear — for the third time in a row — that they don’t want a leader who will kowtow to China. The democratic island elected as president Saturday Lai Ching-te, the current vice president and former independence advocate whom Beijing views as a dangerous “separatist.”
Now, Beijing must craft a response.
For Beijing, Lai’s victory is a loss that deepens anxiety about its ability to bring Taiwan under its control, a long-held goal of the ruling Communist Party and a key part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s legacy. The result gives Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which Beijing refuses to engage with, an unprecedented third term.
“A Lai win will mean that Xi loses face,” said Chen Fang-Yu, assistant professor of political science at Soochow University in Taipei. “It means his Taiwan policy has failed. So now he must do something to show his muscle.”
In the months ahead, Beijing is expected to dial up its efforts to intimidate Taiwan using familiar coercive tactics including military harassment and economic pressure.
But actual conflict or invasion is unlikely — at least for now — officials and analysts in Taiwan and the United States say. China’s immediate actions will be tempered by a desire to maintain recently stabilized relations with Washington...
Beijing was counting on its corrupt partner, the Kuomintang party, to gain power and begin the process of bringing Taiwan closer to the mainland. But the intimidation and economic pressure Beijing has been applying to Taiwan has apparently succeeded in stiffening the resolve of the Taiwanese to resist what happened to free Hong Kong following its absorption into the People's Republic of China in 1997. The "One country, two systems" pledge turned out to be a fig leaf for Beijing as it consolidated its power over the economic dynamo. Fool me once...
What is likely now, as the article goes on to say, is a status quo stalemate, with plenty of aggressive moves short of invasion or war. But a miscalculation is always possible given the tensions in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea. Also, the prospect of a return to power for the autocratically- inclined Malignant Loser may give Beijing hope that it can wait and see if it can flatter the treasonous, narcissistic dolt into abandoning Taiwan, just as he would like to please Putin and his Christofascist base by abandoning NATO.
(Photo: President- elect Lai / Louise Delmotte, AP)
