Taiwan elections, Lai Ching-te's victory is lame. China's reaction is awaited
The Taiwanese did not perceive it as a choice between war and peace, but Lai Ching-te's victory in the presidential elections on Saturday 13 January seems destined to increase tensions on the Taiwan Strait. Not only because he is considered by China to be a “secessionist”, a characteristic which he shares with outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen, but also and perhaps above all due to Beijing's lack of trust in the maneuvers of the United States.
In fact, the arrival in Taiwan of an unofficial delegation set up by the White House is already expected today. He confirmed it the American Institute in Taiwan, the de-facto US embassy in Taipei. And just after the elections. After arriving today, the delegation sent by President Joe Biden's administration will hold talks with “a number of senior political figures” tomorrow, it said in a statement. It is inevitable that the president-elect Lai will also be on this list of meetings
Leading the delegation there would be the former Democratic Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg, and the former Republican National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. A bipartisan troop, therefore, aimed at confirming American support for Taipei even at the dawn of the long electoral campaign that will lead to the elections for the White House next November.
But a message also clear to Xi Jinping, with timing that could actually trigger a more assertive reaction than one might have expected. Meeting the president-elect immediately after the vote could in fact be read as support, or in any case an “official” contact with the Taipei authorities, something that Beijing has always opposed. It will also depend a lot on the profile maintained by the visit. In the past other delegations of former senior officials had been very discreet and indeed in one case had even served to distance themselves from the more aggressive Mike Pompeo (who traveled to Taiwan on two occasions in recent years).
But China didn't even like X's post Antony Blinken. The US Secretary of State in fact explicitly congratulated Lai and “the Taiwanese people for having participated in free and fair elections, demonstrating the strength of their democratic system”. In the past few hours the reaction of Beijing. “The US State Department issued a statement that seriously violates the one-China principle and the three Sino-American joint communiqués, as well as the political commitment made by the United States to preserve only cultural, economic activities and unofficial relations with the Taiwan region. It also violated the separatist forces of Taiwan independence.”
It's still: “China is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed, and has made severe representations to the United States. The Taiwan issue is at the center of China's fundamental interests and the first insurmountable red line in Sino-American relations”. Much harsher tones than those on Saturday evening, where together with the usual warning about “inevitable reunification” the fact that Lai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “does not represent the majority public opinion of Taiwanese this time.”
A statement that seemed to suggest greater patience and that photographs a result that is in fact more multifaceted and fragmented than can be observed at first glance. The DPP has in fact lost 17% of the votes compared to the 2020 presidential elections, i.e. over two and a half million fewer votes. An even clearer trend in the legislative elections, where for the first time in eight years the party loses its majority.
In the legislature that starts on February 1st, the first party will in fact be the Kuomintang, on positions that are much more in dialogue with Beijing, so much so that it is his favourite. An implication that could grant Xi some new arrows at a political level.
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