Thread by @WilliamYang120

"But even if #China’s display of military might discourages other Western politicians from emulating Nancy Pelosi, who enraged Beijing by visiting #Taiwan, it also narrows hopes for winning over the island through negotiations."nytimes.com/2022/08/07/wor…

"Beijing’s shock and awe tactics may deepen skepticism in Taiwan that it can ever reach a peaceful and lasting settlement with the Chinese Communist Party, especially under Xi Jinping as its leader."

“Nothing is going to change after the military exercises, there’ll be one like this and then another,” said Li Wen-te, a 63-year-old retired fisherman in Liuqiu, an island off the southwestern coast of Taiwan.

“They’re as bullying as always,” he said, adding a Chinese saying, “digging deep in soft soil,” which means “give them an inch and they will take a mile.”

"In the face of such pressures, the policy carrots that China has used to coax Taiwan toward unification may carry even less weight. During previous eras of better relations, China welcomed Taiwan’s investment, farm goods and entertainers."

"The result may be deepening mutual distrust that some experts warn could, at an extreme, bring Beijing and Washington into all-out conflict."

“It’s not about to be a blow up tomorrow, but it elevates the overall probability of crisis, conflict or even war with the Americans over Taiwan,” said @MrKRudd.

“The attractiveness of the carrots in China’s Taiwan policy — economic inducements — has now fallen to its lowest point since the end of the Cold War,” said Wu Jieh-min, a political scientist at Academia Sinica.

“The card it holds presently is to raise military threats toward Taiwan step by step, and to continue military preparations for the use of force,” he said. “until one day, a full-scale military offensive on Taiwan becomes a favorable option.”

In the years after that election, China’s leaders likely “want to show some substantive jumps forward on Taiwan, not necessarily unification, but some results there,” said Wang Hsin-hsien, a professor at @nccu1927.

“Xi Jinping is the kind of man who repays enmity with vengeance and repays kindness, but when he takes vengeance it is repaid in double.”

One puzzle that hangs over Taiwan is whether Mr. Xi has a timetable in mind. He has suggested his vision of China’s “rejuvenation” into a prosperous, powerful and complete global power depends on unification with Taiwan.

“We now have a 27-year fuse that can either be slow-burn or fast-burn,” said Mr. Rudd. “The time to worry is the early 2030s, because you’re closer in the countdown zone to 2049, but you’re also in Xi Jinping’s political lifetime.”

“I still believe that the military capacity is first and foremost calibrated at present as a deterrent,” said Willian Klein, a former U.S. diplomat posted in Beijing who now works for FGS Global.

“Their strategy is to narrow the possible universe of outcomes to the point that their preferred outcome becomes a reality.”

In the latest opinion survey from National Chengchi University, 1.3 percent of respondents favored unification as soon as possible, 5.1 percent wanted independence as soon as possible. The rest mostly wanted some version of the ambiguous status quo.

“I cherish our freedom of speech and don’t want to be unified by China,” said Huang Chiu-hong, 47, the owner of a shop that sells fried sticks of braided dough, a local snack, on Liuqiu, the Taiwanese island.

She said she tried to see the People’s Liberation Army in action out of curiosity, but glimpsed nothing at a pavilion overlooking the sea.