Lhe two mandates of the outgoing president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen (2016-2024), were tense with China, but they could be nothing compared to the one started by her successor, Lai Ching-te, invested officially Monday May 20. Across the strait, Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised to politically attach the island to the mainland by peaceful means if possible, but by force if necessary. Constantly repeated, this ambition creates a form of obligation to act.
Also read the decryption | Article reserved for our subscribers Taiwan: under the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen the balancing act, eight years of stability in the storm
Add to your selections
The obsession dates back to the end of the Chinese civil war (1927-1949) and the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949: Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan gave rise to the coexistence of two entities claiming to govern China. It is therefore not only geographical, but also political, historical: communist China was built around the need to close this chapter, the original stain on the takeover of power of the Chinese Communist Party, which was not complete.
However, according to Xi Jinping, this historic mission “cannot pass from generation to generation”. It is a central element of the great “renewal” Chinese which justified the lifting, in 2018, of the limit to two presidential terms. Therefore, how could an all-powerful president spend three, or probably four terms, or twenty years, in power, without concrete results on the issue presented to his population as the most decisive? This finding is enough to worry the Taiwanese.
Political option
From there a date was established, the “Davidson window”. Before leaving his post in 2021, the head of the American command for the Indo-Pacific, Philip Davidson, told the United States Congress that ” the threat [était] manifest during this decade, in fact these next six years”, considering that China wanted to be militarily capable of invading the island in 2027. His successor also repeated this date. But, according to American media, including NBC, during his meeting in San Francisco with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, in November 2023, Xi Jinping told him that, if China intends to take Taiwan, the option political remains preferred to the military route and that the timing has not been fixed.
The matter hinges heavily on Mr. Xi’s assessment of risk. His career has convinced him that a bold maneuver can work against Westerners who prefer comfort to conflict and that one must know how to assume the cost of one’s political objectives. Since the leader came to power in the fall of 2012, China has built artificial islands on contested islets in the South China Sea; it sent probably a million Uighurs to internment camps starting in 2016 and implemented continental methods in Hong Kong in 2020 to silence dissent. Despite this repressive escalation, China’s share increased from 20% to 30% in global manufacturing production between 2012 and 2021.
You have 50.72% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
