FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
TAIPEI – Foreign Minister Joseph Wu was recounting to the international press the many intimidating measures China has taken to interfere in Saturday's election when every cell phone in the room and on the island blared. A “Presidential Alert” appeared on the screen in English. airstrike. Missile over Taiwanese airspace. Mr. Wu looked at his smartphone and calmly informed us that “China has just launched a satellite and the rocket that put it into orbit has flown over the south of our island.” They do it often, but certainly they lead The choice of timing and the lack of advance warning are due to their strategy of provocations and threats.” Shortly afterwards, Beijing announced that it had sent the Einstein satellite into the sky for scientific purposes. Taipei Defense apologized for the spelling of “satellite” in the Mandarin version and “missile” in English: “careless translation.” Case closed.
Frictions since 1996
But the satellite coup was evidence of tensions over the Jan. 13 vote that will give Taiwan a new president who could be a particularly unwelcome figure in Beijing. Minister Wu recalled that when the Taiwanese went to the polls for the first time in 1996, the Chinese fired (real) missiles into the strait and only the dispatch of two American aircraft carriers calmed the situation. Now Xi Jinping leads a superpower, Beijing also has aircraft carriers and for months he has been warning the island's “compatriots” about an “inevitable reunification with China” and that these elections are “a choice between war and peace.”
In sight
Xi's pre-election warning is aimed primarily at 64-year-old William Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a doctor and current deputy to Ms Tsai Ing-wen, who is leaving the scene after two terms in office. Eight years in which Xi closed all political channels with the “province,” ordered military maneuvers to test air and naval blockades or an invasion, and instructed Washington “not to interfere in an internal matter within China.” By branding Lai a “separatist destroyer of peace,” the Beijing party-state suggests that his victory would bring Taiwan (and the Western world) closer to a showdown.
“No to independence”
In the past, Lai has described himself as a “political activist for Taiwan's independence.” Having become more cautious due to the responsibilities of the government (and by the advice of the United States, which does not want a third front), he has corrected his position: now he says: “There is no will to proclaim independence, our island is already de. “actually sovereign and the status quo in the strait serves the interests of world stability.” Yesterday he explained that by resuming pragmatic dialogue with the island, which does not want to become part of the Chinese empire, Xi will seize a great opportunity: the responsible one Return to international order. But he has no illusions and comes to the conclusion: “With military threats, economic coercion, disinformation, infiltration, China wants us to elect a governor instead of a president, like in Hong Kong.” It would be the end of freedom.
It was Lai's toughest intervention in this election campaign. According to polls, the leading government candidate wants to keep his distance from his two rivals: especially Hou You-ih, a former police commander elected by the Kuomintang (KMT), who is more open to compromises with the Chinese and follows him by a few points. Further back, Ko Wen-jie, a surgeon and former mayor of Taipei, who pursues an unspecified third path. The result of the vote is not a given. Everyone is aware of China's destructive power, but no one has the recipe to appease Xi, who bases his bid for reunification on the principle that there is “only one China,” accepted by the international community fifty years ago.
But at the time, Washington strategists led by Henry Kissinger were deluded into believing that a statement of principles was enough and that China would be content to become an economic power that tolerated a separate and democratic province.