Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.
TAIPEI -- After being sworn into office, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te in his inauguration speech on Monday pledged never to "yield to or provoke" China and to "maintain the status quo."
The 64-year-old doctor-turned-politician seems to have deliberately borrowed the carefully chosen words of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai's vocabulary seemed designed to avoid provoking President Xi Jinping and China while also reassuring U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, which frets about tensions along the Taiwan Strait exploding into an armed clash.
Lai, however, went on to offer a glimpse of his own politics -- he once advocated for Taiwan independence -- when he said, "On this day in 1996, Taiwan's first democratically elected president took the oath of office, conveying to the international community that the Republic of China Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people."
Then he went further, saying, "The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other," referring to Taiwan and China.
Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te wave during Lai's inauguration ceremony outside the Presidential office building in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 20.
© Reuters
His remarks had some hidden symbolism: Under Lai, Taiwan will look away from the "One China" policy favored by Beijing and carry on as "a sovereign, independent nation."
China responded quickly. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson criticized Lai, saying that "the pursuit of Taiwan independence is a dead end" and "no matter what banner or pretext the separatists use, Taiwan independence is doomed to failure."
Taiwan is also integral to a quest Xi has embarked on. To Xi, Taiwan unification holds the key to realizing the "Chinese dream" of the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." Only if he makes progress on the Taiwan issue, Xi feels, will his name go down in Chinese Communist Party history.
Xi, however, is already facing a crisis in his bid to leave a Taiwan legacy. It is the first time since Taiwan's first direct presidential election for the pro-independence DPP to win a third consecutive four-year term.
For Xi, the result is something of a fiasco in that all three elections came after he became China's top leader. Lai's victory, coming after those by Tsai in 2016 and 2020, gives the impression that China's great goal of Taiwan unification has grown more distant.
Though Xi has made it clear that China will never renounce the use of force to realize its ambition, it would be extremely difficult to go through with such a threat now that the Chinese economy is in historic decline.
If tough military measures are taken now, pitting China against a Taiwan that has the U.S. at its side, China's economy would slide further, with its inbound investments, including those from Taiwan, tumbling.
Xi is now pinning his hopes for a turnaround in Taiwan politics on 2026 or beyond, people familiar with China-Taiwan relations say.
Taiwan's quadrennial unified local elections will be held at the end of 2026 and will be an important prelude to the democracy's next presidential election in 2028.
Beijing's hopes for bringing Taiwan into its fold lie with the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the Kuomintang, or KMT, which won a resounding victory over the ruling DPP in both the 2018 and 2022 unified local elections. Given Taiwan's current political trajectory, Beijing likely calculates that the KMT will again defeat the DPP in 2026.
Lai, who has long accumulated power as the DPP's star politician, is the public face of the DPP's mainstream. He maintains solid control over the party, but his support rate across Taiwan is lower than his predecessor Tsai's.
Furthermore, Lai has to lead a minority government, as his DPP lacks a majority in the Yuan, Taiwan's unicameral legislature. In the latest Yuan elections, on Jan. 13, the KMT routed the DPP and became the legislature's largest force.
Now the KMT is trying to legislate itself new powers. On Friday, a brawl broke out between DPP and KMT lawmakers over a KMT power grab. Given the political reality, it will be difficult for Lai to get bills passed, which will be necessary if he is to boost his support rate and lead the DPP to an electoral victory in 2026.
Taiwan lawmakers came to blows during a parliamentary session in Taipei on May 17 as the China-leaning Kuomintang party tried to hand itself sweeping new powers.
© Reuters
Meanwhile, those working at the central organizations of the KMT are mainly waishengren, Chinese who fled to Taiwan after World War II plus their descendants. They attach importance to relations with mainland China.
The KMT's local organizations, meanwhile, are deeply rooted in the local communities and culture.
Taiwan's political climate is going through a significant transformation, as reflected by the presidential election in January, in which the three candidates, including Lai and one from the KMT, were all benshengren, those who were born and grew up in Taiwan, something unseen in previous presidential elections.
Benshengren originally refers to people who were living in Taiwan before the end of World War II and before the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war to the communists.
Even though the central organizations of the KMT, which play an important role in Taiwan's presidential election, have been weakened, the opposition party can still demonstrate its strength in unified local elections.
If the KMT wins in 2026 it will take a big step toward beating Lai and his DPP in Taiwan's next presidential election in 2028.
As China and the KMT share a common understanding of "One China," at least to a certain extent, a KMT electoral victory in 2026 would not only give it momentum, it would give Xi a boost ahead of 2027, when he is expected to make a bid for a fourth term as China's top leader at the party's next quinquennial national congress.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Xi Jinping (right) shakes hands with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT in Beijing on April 10 as the two promote unification.
© Xinhua/AP
But Xi does not necessarily have to play the waiting game and hope Taiwan's electoral politics play out in his favor. He still has a military option, a blockade.
A source involved in cross-strait relations says Taiwan should remain vigilant about this possibility as Beijing has already held a dayslong rehearsal of what was essentially a blockade in 2022.
That summer China set up no-navigation zones around Taiwan while it conducted military exercises in response to then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island.
During the exercise, China launched missiles, some of which fell within Japan's exclusive economic zone for the first time in history.
Should China form a blockade around Taiwan, and if the flow of energy, goods and people to and from Taiwan becomes impossible for a certain period, Taiwan's economy and supply chains that link to the rest of the world would grind to a halt. The global economy would suffer greatly.
Beijing sees Lai as a dangerous separatist. If Lai were to skillfully manage his minority government and put the DPP in a position to succeed in 2026, would Beijing raise the alert level about him and maneuver into a more formal blockade? Or might it resort to a quick blockade to pull Lai down?
Far from allaying the Biden administration's fears, the tense relations between China and Taiwan are not about to ease up anytime soon.
