Deng Yuwen

Opinion | Xi Jinping won’t force unification on Taiwan for now, the show of force by China’s PLA notwithstanding

Xi has unification on his mind, but the conditions are not ripe for it, given that China is still locked in a trade war with the US and Taiwan is gearing up for elections. The PLA’s incursion into Taiwanese airspace was intentional, but it won’t be overplayed

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Deng Yuwen

Published: 3:00am, 15 Apr 2019Updated: 3:00am, 15 Apr 2019

For the first time in years, two Chinese fighter jets crossed into Taiwanese airspace on March 31, causing Taiwan to scramble its own aircraft in a tense stand-off. What impact will this incident have on cross-strait relations, and will a similar stand-off eventually lead to an accidental exchange of fire?

As Taiwan gears up for the 2020 presidential election, unification and independence will surely be one of hot topics of debate.

So far, both President Tsai Ing-wen and her colleague at the Democratic Progressive Party, former premier William Lai Ching-te, a self-proclaimed “pragmatic Taiwan independence worker”, have said they would seek nomination for the contest. We can’t rule out the possibility that the DPP will turn to some underhand means to try to win the election, but it would not want to trigger a Chinese campaign to force unification.

This does not mean Beijing does not want to resolve the Taiwan issue as soon as possible, but now is not the time. We know this from the fact that Taiwan was not made an issue during the Two Sessions meetings of China’s political leaders last month.