Taiwan’s polls next year could usher in a president more assertive to Beijing, which could in turn respond by taking a tougher line.
The Straits Times
Date: Apr 15, 2015 8:35 AM
By: Hugh White, For The Straits Times
IT IS time to start worrying about Taiwan again.
In the past few years, it has slipped quietly into the background as tensions in the East
— ST ILLUSTRATION: MANNY FRANCISCO
China Sea and South China Sea have posed more urgent threats to regional peace and stability. But now old questions about Taiwan’s longer-term future are re-emerging, and so are old fears that differences over Taiwan could rupture United States-China relations and drive Asia into a major crisis.
Taiwan’s status has been a highly sensitive issue between Washington and Beijing ever since 1949, when defeated nationalists withdrew to the island as the communists swept to power in the mainland. The differences were papered over only when US-China relations were opened up after 1972. Taiwan was left in an awkward limbo, neither accepting Beijing’s rule nor seeking recognition as an independent country. [FULL STORY]
