The Los Angeles Times
Date: March 29, 2018 
By: Ralph Jennings

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged this month to punish self-ruled Taiwan for any

Chinese President Xi Jinping waves to elected deputies after the closing session of the annual National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Lan Hongguang / New China News Agency)

moves toward legal independence from China. The next day a Chinese aircraft carrier passed through the Taiwan Strait that separates the two sides.
You might expect this thunder from a leader in Beijing who can rule for life and says Taiwan must unify with China. The Communist leadership has sworn for seven decades to unify, somehow, with democratic Taiwan. China also commands the world’s third strongest military.

But people who follow Chinese politics expect Xi to use the luxury of multiple terms in office to explore a softer and possibly more persuasive approach to the unification goal. On March 12 the National People’s Congress confirmed that Chinese presidents can serve an unlimited number of five-year terms, not just two. Xi, 64, began his first in 2013.
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