🗳 🇹🇼 🇨🇳 Pro-independence William Lai Ching-te of the DPP is set to win Taiwan’s presidential election. | Thomas Hon Wing Polin

"At this stage outsiders cannot know if there has been any polling chicanery, and it is futile to speculate. What is noteworthy and beyond doubt is that once again, the anti-DPP vote has been split -- severely this time -- after an earlier decision to field a joint ticket. The combined opposition vote would have easily beaten Lai’s tally.

Whether one or both opposition candidates were induced by the DPP or CIA/NED to split the ticket will never be investigated, not with the ruling party now gaining a third successive term.

What next? Chances are high that Beijing will reassess its policy towards Taiwan. For nearly two decades, the CPC had offered the island countless trade and economic privileges, most of them unilaterally. The centerpiece is the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which allowed Taiwan to accumulate a whopping US$156-billion bilateral trade surplus last year. Its neutralization could mean the loss of 2-3 million local jobs. Some 40% of the island’s exports go to the mainland (attached post, below).

ECFA and other longstanding carrots clearly haven’t had the desired effect of bringing Taipei and Beijing closer. In fact, the opposite has happened during the past eight years of DPP rule. The separatists have not only been brainwashing Taiwan people to revile the mainland but even cooperate actively with intensifying US plans to contain and confront China. More of the same lies in store the next four years.

If carrots are proven ineffective, the stick logically comes into play.

Withdrawal of economic privileges for Taiwan would be a relatively easy first step. Beijing will likely consider a range of other options as well, short of igniting war. They will remind Taiwanese that they cannot continue to have their cake and eat it too.

Indeed, despite occasional PLA exercises, Taiwan people have been notably confident about Beijing’s moderation, taking for granted the mainland’s patience, underlying goodwill and desire for peaceful reunification. So much so that even after the Pelosi Provocation (visit) of August 2022, surveys showed them much less anxious about a mainland “invasion” than folks on the other side of the world.

China’s leaders may start driving home this lesson with increasing forcefulness: Support for anti-reunification forces will have real"

📎 Thomas Hon Wing Polin

🗳 🇹🇼 🇨🇳 Mainland China sends ‘early warning’ ahead of Taiwan’s presidential election by suspending tariff cuts

Thomas Hon Wing Polin - 20 Dec 23:

"This move is a preview of how Beijing is likely to deal with Taiwan if William Lai of the separatist DPP wins the island’s leadership election next month.

Some 40% of all Taiwan’s exports go to the mainland. Because of preferential tariff treatment under ECFA, the island currently runs a US$156-billion bilateral trade surplus. That has kept Taiwan’s overall commerce in surplus. Without the free-trade pact, it would have a large deficit.

Sans ECFA, Taiwan industry as well as agriculture & fisheries, two mainstays of its economy, would also take heavy hits. Experts have estimated job losses of 2 to 3 million, out of a workforce of 11 million.

Beijing has a ready-made reason to terminate ECFA, which explicitly requires progress in the removal of trade tariffs. While the mainland has reduced or lifted levies on imports from Taiwan, the island imposes them on some 2,500 items from the mainland. The ruling DPP has shown no inclination whatsoever of removing them.

ECFA is a purely bilateral accord, so the WTO has no jurisdiction over any aspect of it.

For well over a decade, Beijing has tried to woo its estranged province with economic and other carrots -- to little avail, even during periods of KMT governance in Taipei. It could start to try the stick."

📎 Thomas Hon Wing Polin