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Can the US and China reassure each other over Taiwan ahead of crucial elections?
- The coming summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden offers an opportunity to lower the temperature on a highly sensitive topic
- January’s elections in Taiwan could create further volatility because Beijing views front runner William Lai as a ‘troublemaker through and through’
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Taiwan has long been the flashpoint of the China-US relations with Beijing repeatedly warning Washington that mishandling the issue is likely to have a devastating impact on the relationship.
Meeting in Bali last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his US counterpart Joe Biden that Taiwan was “the first red line” that must not be crossed.
The coming meeting between Biden and Xi in California may provide the ideal window of opportunity for the American and Chinese leaders to cool down the temperature in the Taiwan Strait ahead of elections that might alter the dynamic between Beijing and Taipei.
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From Beijing’s perspective, the front runner in the Taiwanese presidential election, vice-president and ruling Democratic Progressive Party candidate William Lai Ching-te, is a destabilising factor given his pro-independence background.
Biden also has strong reason to want to preserve peace and stability ahead of his own re-election bid in November next year, and any further escalation could open him up to attacks from his Republican opponents that he is weak on China.
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Sandra Oudkirk, the de facto American ambassador to Taiwan, has said Washington believes maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait is good for peace and stability in Taiwan and throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Zhu Zhiqun, an international relations professor at Bucknell University, said Biden was trying to lower the tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
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