韜略天下Strategy Insights Ep 95: Pro-Beijing Paper Pushes 'Peace Talks' — Why Now?

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Professor Ming's Strategic Insights. A few weeks ago, a pro-Beijing Taiwan newspaper ran an editorial, which entitled, Peace talks are the general trend, time for both sides lay down conditions. Both sides means Taiwan and mainland China. Well, they proposed a few points to support their argument. The first point being that the Sino-American relations has entered into a new era since the summit meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping. And both China and the United States jointly fight Taiwan independence has become a reality. And there's no hope and no future for Taiwan independence. And Taiwan independence has no future, has no way to go. And that's the first point. The second point they propose is that since Taiwan independence has no future, so maintaining status quo is a false issue. And Taiwan's only option for the future is a negotiation or entering into a negotiation with mainland China. And that's the second point. And thirdly, they cited the outcome of a public poll, suggesting that first, that 59.6% of the people who agreed that Taiwan should actively enter into a peace negotiation with mainland China. And secondly, a total of 22% of the Taiwanese people accept the one country, two system formula proposed by mainland China. Of course, there's a 69% of the people who are against it. If you are familiar with the polls, public polls, then you may know that you'll get different answers when it comes to a different wording or different formulation of the questions. Namely, the answers you get or the consequence you get from a poll may heavily depend on different wordings. So let me provide the results or the consequence of a different poll for comparison. This one is done by MAC, Mainland Affairs Council. It's our department to deal with the mainland affairs in a government. So when a question is asked like this, if you accept one China, two systems, that means the Republic of China is no longer existing. And the rate for support drops from 22.4% to 9.1%, less than half. And still, if the question is put yet very differently, if accepting one country, two systems at the expense of losing freedom and democracy, what would you say? And the support rate even dropped sharply to 5.9% from 22.4%, dropped to 9.1%, then to 5.9%. So that means different wording could lead to different results. So the interpretation of these poll results is quite simple and straightforward. Although we Taiwanese don't want to see wars in our area or in Taiwan, but we cherish our freedom, we cherish our democracy, and we cherish our sovereignty. And that's simple and straightforward. Then here comes another question. How come all of a sudden that Communist China or Beijing wants to propose this new round offensive against Taiwan? Why do they want to propose this so-called peace talks or a peace talk for unification? And there are several reasons accounting for this. The first one is Beijing must have noticed that cooperation among the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, and even South Korea is increasing. And they've been promoting or even escalating their cooperations in areas like economy or trade, technology, and even military. And there is a common target for all these cooperations, namely mainland China or Communist China, with Taiwan implicitly involved in it. As I mentioned before, that Taiwan has reached or established a strategic alliance with the United States by way of chip cooperation or cooperation through chip manufacturing. And the second reason is Beijing was perhaps hoping to reach a grand deal or a grand bargain with Trump when they had this summit meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping. But anyway, it did not come out well for them. So that's a big, big failure for them. And that's the second reason. The third reason is that they were shocked to see that Trump ran a comment in his own social truth warning over the tragedy of the Tiananmen massacre that happened 37 years ago. And that's unprecedented by any American president. So that's a real shock to them. The fourth reason is that Beijing was hoping that Ms. Zheng Liwen, the chairperson of the KMT party, her visit to Washington could possibly change some American views about the Taiwan Strait, and perhaps even a peace talk across the Taiwan Strait could be possible. And that appears to be a failure again. These four are the more obvious reasons. But there's another reason, which is discussed less frequently. We always talk about how President Trump is going to face a pressure from a midterm election coming in early November. Doesn't Xi Jinping have his own pressure? For instance, his purge of Zhang Youxia, of the three-star general Zhang Youxia, which has caused much commotion and trouble and even resistance inside the so-called liberation army and rank and files. So it's a tough question for him to deal with, even until now. And secondly, doesn't he have the pressure of re-election? Remember, as a rule that the CCP doesn't allow anybody to hold the same position for more than two terms. Now, Xi Jinping is in his third term, which has broken the past routine. And it is said that the reason that he got the third term is because he pledged to the party that he was going to solve the so-called Taiwan question in his third term. And his third term will end in 2027, which is next year. So he's under the pressure of so-called re-election. In comparison, in a democracy, if a leader lost a chance of re-election or election, he can step down as a civilian or he can step down as the leader of an opposition party. But for a leader in a totalitarian regime, things will be quite different. He will be facing things like a purge, jail, or even a life sentence. So a failure in re-election for Xi Jinping in 2027 would be a major challenge for him. So that's a totally different story. But anyway, what I'm trying to tell you today is that mainland China or Beijing is launching a new wave of offensive against Taiwan. And this new wave against Taiwan will eventually lead to the United States in politics in Washington, in the political circle in Washington, D.C., and in mass media and in social media. So that's something we're going to face in the coming month for the second half of this year and for the probably entire 2027. But anyway, that's something we should be keeping an eye on. So that's all I want to share with you today. I hope you like today's program. And please share it with your friends and subscribe to it. And do remember to click the icon bell. That's all for today. I'll see you next time.