E-International Relatins
Date: March 6 2020
By: Yu-Hua Chen

Opinion – Why Tsai Ing-wen’s Victory is a Blessing for the Taiwan Strait
Image by Wang Yu Ching / Office of the President

As the coronavirus situation inside China appears to stabilize, it is time to look back to the future of China-Taiwan relations. In the 2020 presidential election of Taiwan, the incumbent president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. Since Tsai assumed office in 2016, China has intensified its pressure on the self-ruled island nation by a series of efforts. The primary purpose behind all these efforts is to force Tsai, who adamantly refuses to compromise on Taiwan’s sovereignty, to accept a unification proposal on Beijing’s terms. Despite the pressure from Beijing, she still defeated Mayor Han Kuo-Yu, a candidate Beijing prefers, by a significant margin. (2.6 million votes). While Tsai’s success should not be over exaggerated, the message the Taiwanese would like to send to Beijing in this election seems loud and clear — intimidation and coercion are not effective and even counter-productive. The more pressure Beijing puts on Taiwan, the stronger the Taiwanese resolve to defend their freedom and democracy becomes.

After the election, however, many experts on China shared the concern that Tsai’s victory may worsen the stability of the Taiwan Strait due to the likely response from Beijing. Lev Nachman argued, ‘The CCP is likely to respond in terms of doubling down on their current strategy of trying to punish Taiwan as much as possible.’ Bonnie Glaser warned that, ‘I expect they (Chinese) will double down on their use of military, diplomatic, and economic measures that they have already been taking.’ James Palmer also predicted before the election that, ‘Military options may even start to look more palatable.’ Certainly, the possibility that China will increase its pressure on Taiwan in the following months cannot be easily ruled out. However, according to the deterrence model of thinking, Tsai’s victory may stabilize this dangerous strait.0
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