Why not try conciliation with the island when belligerence has repeatedly failed in the past for the mainland?

South China Morning Post
Date: 12 Jan, 2020
By:| Alex Lo

Tsai Ing-wen’s election victory may not have been a landslide, but it was decisive. Pundits of all stripes pretty much agreed long before Saturday that her second term as Taiwan president was virtually guaranteed. All she had to do was to ride on a tidal wave of anti-China sentiments among the island’s voters while her rival, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang, found his conciliatory stance with Beijing became an electoral liability.

It is not the end for the mainland or the Kuomintang. But Beijing must readjust its cross-strait policies if relations are to improve. Taiwan is now permanently entrenched as a two-party polity. Or let us hope so because any emerging third party will likely be advocating independence outright.

Beijing’s old game of playing nice with the KMT and rough with Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party no longer works. In fact, it has become counterproductive. It makes the KMT untrustworthy in the eyes of many Taiwan voters, especially younger ones, and risks turning it into an opposition party.

Beijing must learn to work with both parties, no matter which one is in power. Freezing relations or threatening the DPP whenever it is in power will simply push the island further into the arms of Washington. It may be a bitter pill to swallow but it’s time for Beijing to take Tsai seriously and work with her.    [FULL  STORY]