The meeting between former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing on Wednesday offered an outlet to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait, an academic said yesterday.
In particular, it helped soften calls within China to unify with Taiwan by force, Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳) said at a forum in Taipei.
Chang said the encounter gave Xi a chance to showcase his policy of peaceful exchanges and unification both internationally and within China, offering him a “face-saving exit,” without which he would have to continue adopting a “tough” stance against Taiwan.
Photo: Xinhua News Agency via AP
That could mean that meetings between Ma and Xi become the norm, as Xi needs a mechanism to show that peaceful unification is on track, and alienate the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chang said.
Ma, who last year made an 11-day trip to China during which he met with numerous Chinese officials, was an ideal candidate for such a mechanism to work, Chang said, adding that with next year being the 10th anniversary of their first meeting, the two are likely to meet again next year.
Their first meeting was in Singapore in 2015, while Ma was still president of the Republic of China.
Chang said he was not worried about possible attempts by China to act disruptively before Taiwan’s president-elect William Lai (賴清德) takes office on May 20.
Although communication between Taiwan and China ground to a halt after the DPP returned to power in 2016, communication channels between China and the US, and between Taiwan and the US are still open, Chang said.
With these “safety valves” in place, any risks that come with attempts by Beijing to ratchet up tensions in the Taiwan Strait before May 20 would be “manageable and without any surprises,” he said.
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