Forgot to add: If the war in Iran drags on for not just weeks but months and China is still not taking any military action, I don't think any serious people will ask the question "will China attack Taiwan". So I figure I have to write this piece asap, otherwise it will lose relevance.
The other likely reason for China not taking Taiwan now but still having the intent to do so in the future—China’s military is not ready enough despite the US military being distracted and bogged down in Iran.
China, as well as Russia, have and are currently still supporting Iran. But Iran has been somewhat stubborn about appearing or being a vassal state of Russia or China, and therefore has not fully embraced either of them. They want to be on a similar footing with Russia and China, not below them.
May I just add one additional point that might help: holding a territory taken by force is expensive and morally corrosive, especially in this day and age.
It's very odd to me that people think of colonialism and don't take into account the force multiplier that the monopoly over firearms gave to the Western occupiers. When one side is armed with swords (mandating close action combat) and the other side with firearms, you could kill vast numbers of people at a distance safely without endangering your own troops. When troops have to die, it becomes much harder.
With the spread of firearms technology, the cost of maintaining an occupying army increased. You needed more troops, those troops had to be armed and they would be taking greater risks of being killed. You could keep increasing the numbers and weapons, but that becomes an ever greater drain on your treasure to the extent that the amount you can extract from the territory becomes less than the amount spent on maintaining it. When WWII drained the treasuries of the occupying nations so that this expense could no longer be kept up, colonisation also ended. Not because the colonisers were suddenly stricken by a bad bout of morals but because they couldn't afford the cost anymore. And still they had to be forced out with much blood and treasure lost on both sides.
As events in the Middle East and Middle Asia show, you can't bomb a people into submission, and attempts to hold it come at a huge cost. China bombing the province of Taiwan will be a Phyrric victory at best.
The only real way to hold a territory that has been forcibly taken over is to remove the current inhabitants (either forced transfer or genocide, a la Israel) and move in your own people. See what the British did to Scotland and Northern Ireland. And then in this day and age you have to monitor the inhabitants you remove to ensure that they don't set up cells to conduct terrorist attacks. This reinforces the sense of the people of the colony that they are a separate people from your own. It also creates moral corrosion of your own people--see what has happened to the character of the West, twisting itself into pretzels justifying their cruel past or trying to pretend it still isn't happening.
For those who would point to Germany and Japan post World War II, I would point out that resistance had already been bled dry via the wars and, for the elites of those countries, the threat of communism taking their wealth was a mind concentrator: better to side with the Americans who were willing to make you wealthy so that they had a market to sell to than risk your country falling to the communists who would distribute your wealth to the "rabid masses". That dynamic no longer exists.
The Chinese get this. They get that the only way to hold Taiwan and keep Taiwan is for the Taiwanese to voluntarily agree to come back.
People who think only in terms of the short term use of force have been educated by the colonial "adventures" when the massive force multiplier and monopoly over firearms allowed real mass slaughter of the colonised while the colonisers could sip their gin tonics in the safety of their "whites only" clubs, wrapping themselves in the chilly comfort of their hypocrisies. Those days are long gone.
I think taking Taiwan would be hard, but holding it would be easy. China has no problem surveilling and disappearing people. Resistance would be futile. When resistance is obviously futile, resistance is usually minimal.
From a Chinese perspective, the Western obsession with the idea that China is permanently on the verge of invading Taiwan has always seemed a bit puzzling, especially given the almost complete lack of evidence of any such intention. Until the US-China relationship began souring around 10 years ago, both parties seemed to be consider the status quo to be a win-win relationship, and even if the relationship is now partially on hold, that assessment has not substantially changed. For the few in the West who actually wish to understand the Chinese perspective, these two articles are a great place to start. That said, there is one aspect which might be worth adding: namely, that if for some reason China one day were to feel the need to "take action" as it were in the face of some extreme provocation, the obvious response would not be to invade Taiwan, but rather to blockade it. This is far far simpler and can be used to make a point far more readily than by attempting an extremely messy invasion.
Indeed, I wonder why analysts don’t include siege vs invasion. Taiwan’s main trading partner is China, and it can blockade the island much more easily than invade it. Look at what’s happening to Cuba…
Well China's large military buildup, naval exercises, and continuous testing of Taiwan's airspace are strong indicators that China is at least preparing for the possibility.
The argument presented in the article is too optimistic. Firstly, the US wants Taiwan not only for its semiconductors, but also for its VLSI engineering talents/ecosystem as well as a strategic locale for containing China militarily. This is linked with Japan’s view as Takaichi espoused (and which has been Japan’s point for over a decade prior to Takaichi’s most recent reiteration of their stance).
Secondly, Xi’s track record shows that he will push on policies and decision that he and he alone deems to be most beneficial or strategic. The almost overnight lifting of Zero-Covid is a good recent example. The reining in of China’s tech elite (Jack Ma and others) is another—no one must have the remote possibility of challenging the CCP. Xi and leaders do not care about the public’s view of the Taiwan situation (what can the docile Chinese people do anyway?) with the exception guarding against revolutions (8926, white paper demonstrations, etc). The propaganda apparatus and security forces will ensure this.
Lastly, bring up a recent historic TV show to convey how the CCP of today thinks and acts is just… naive at best. The CCP operates eons differently than the emperors of old. I mean, you could bring out stories from 三国 even the fictional 水浒传—those have no bearings on modern day CCP decision making.
I will say that Xi and the CCP do prefer a peaceful solution. But make no mistake, he will make himself go down in history one way or another. Achieving reunification is likely the only way to do so. If Taiwan doesn’t take the carrot, he will use the stick. Achieving the so-called score of 30% using military invasion is likely much more preferable than the 0% score from failing unification during Xi Dada’s lifetime.
I like your reference to zero covid and the reopening. It's an important data point showing he is a man who knows when to stop.
As for that TV show, 太平年, an important detail I didn't mention in the essay was that the show was very prominently funded by the central propaganda/publicity department as well as the propaganda department of Zhejiang, the power base of Xi and many of his colleagues. Maybe this will change your assessment a little bit.
The reason I deliberately did not mention it in the essay is precisely that I don't think this will mean anything in real terms, and I don’t want you to overinterpret the significance of a TV show. However, the fact that the show exists, and the popularity it enjoys, is also a data point for me to gauge where the national mood is.
Well, with zero-Covid and reopening, there’s at least 2 ways to interpret it. One is as you said, Xi being someone who knows when to stop. The second is that he was so incompetent that his hand was forced by the rising anti-zero-covid sentiments like the white paper movement. Both are valid I believe, and both can be true at the same time.
As for the TV show being funded by the central propaganda department, I see that as a part of the CCP using their vast propaganda apparatus to sway the national mood. It’s in the same vein as the anti-Japanese sentiments from the movie 南京照相馆电影 (which I’ve yet to see, but I’ve read that it stoke those sentiments last year).
So the apparatus “sway the national mood“ to accept a peaceful reunification? Yeah, that just proves my point.
And about 南京照相馆 stoking anti-Japanese sentiments? Man, I don’t think you know what you are talking about here. It's a very nuanced film. Better watch it yourself.
I have watched Swords to Plowshares on Viki Rakuten. It is fascinating. As you so well put it:
“what’s interesting about a Chinese TV drama that you can’t find in American dramas is that this one not only has no problem of using an epic peace, not an epic battle, as a way to wrap up a big show, but also takes the pains to show you the deliberations about the lengths those characters go to in order to avoid violence.”
Then it also made me wonder if there is a deliberate message, contrasting the price of destructive wars, with a peaceful and successful merger.
A side note, the Confucian quotes in some of the Chinese Historical dramas are quite thought provoking. I look forward to more of that philosophy being shared with the west, in a form that they may more easily consume.
I just kinda wandered in, but this is fascinating. A completely different history and set of cultural associations leads to a completely different strategic culture, rational from their point of view! (Indeed it seems more rational from mine as well.)
I sorta feel like 'winning a war to have a legacy' is more of a US thing and we are projecting that onto them. But yeah, in a country with roughly stable boundaries for the past 2000 years managing your empire is gonna be a bigger deal than trying to take more territory (which is how the USA grew).
Stupid question: how does the wu-wen distinction in Chinese masculinity map onto the geek-jock divide in American? My broad impression is that it's vaguely analogous but a different side is preferred, but I'd love to talk to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Thanks for an excellent analysis, with which I agree totally. I've always believed, and have for at least 40 years told fiends interested in the topic, that, for China, "没有台湾问题，只有美国问题“ (Taiwan is never a problem, US is the only problem)。
Your observation that China has learned through eons of hard lessons that war can exacerbate existing governmental imbalances, leading to implosion, may be a lesson the U.S. is creating for itself.
The nation was already deeply polarized, and its government was dysfunctional even before Trump chose to engage in an unprovoked war. His status both domestically and internatonally are dysmal, and the midterm elections will likely be catastrophic.
Trump has his own private military, and a violent implosion and a civil war are not simply fantasies. Taiwan may be abandoned as a casualty of the Iran War fiasco, triggering unexpected consequences in American internal affairs.
I trust the Taiwanese to do the pragmatic thing in finally reconciling with their "womb mates."
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
The people of mainland China and Taiwan are “same womb”. As Americans learned from our Civil War, when brothers fight brothers, the nation’s sons die tragically.
The big problem with your point RE Xi’s ersatz obsession with legacy is, even if it’s not *in evidence*, (1) it’s still a very catastrophic failure mode that can’t be ignored, and (2) the failure mode is common to other motivations/obsessions, none of which can be ignored.
The strategic center here is not just force projection but prestige optimization: if peaceful reunification yields higher legitimacy than a destructive invasion, then military power becomes leverage for inevitability rather than conquest.
I am not doubting that this is all the calculus, but it seems pretty nieve in 2026 to think that you can simply out-military your way into getting a country to give up their independence. There's like five wars in the last five years were a very transparently outmatched country took cataclysmic losses to avoid giving an inch let alone give it all.
I am sure Ukraine and Gaza and Iran all have people that will write about how amazing and wonderful their enemy is, but all still chose rubble over capitulation. Like I said I do not question the CCP belief that peaceful unification through threat is possible, but I strongly question whether it actually *is* possible.
I would guess that one simple answer to the question “why doesn’t China attack now?” is that when it comes to military planning and readiness, if you’ve planned to be ready in 2027, speeding that up by a year is logistical and strategic nightmare. There would be a billion details of supply, training, etc all designed to peak at the same time. Changing that on the fly, even by a year, would be incredibly daunting.
I think there are three options: war, an economic blockade leading to unification, and peaceful and voluntary unification. Of the three, economic blockade seems the most likely. Voluntary unification seems improbably because the West will intervene in Taiwanese domestic politics (as they have done in Ukraine). War is unlikely since economic blockade is a viable path to unification. Just my view.
This is something I genuinely disagree to an extreme: I don’t disagree with the idea of finding a better opportunity such as America is fully dragged into this war later. But I cannot tolerate to think 70% of the 23mil people who are essentialist enemies are to be peacefully engaged, essentially doing the same minority polices of Hu Yaobang that is harmful for the majority. China cannot peacefully deal with them and the CCP’s track record of doing stupidly “progressive” stuff such as tolerating Japanese orphans to stay in China (should’ve been executed) and its lack of retribution against its enemies make them look at a paper tiger. It’s pure cope right now to think everyone is afraid of Xi. Guess what Arabs are scared of Israel. You know what they’ve done?? So consider yours truly sincerely don’t believe in a peaceful unification without attrition of local enemies. Thank you for your attention to this matter. :)
"we must first accept an uncomfortable, fundamental truth: the “Taiwan Question” has never been a bilateral issue between Beijing and Taipei. It is, and always has been, a function of the U.S.-China relationship."
But Taipei is vital to the equation. Peaceful reunification won't happen if people in Taiwan resist it. Right now Beijing has nothing appealing to offer the people of Taiwan and can only offer coercion and intimidation. Most people in Taiwan are distrustful of the CCP and do not wish to see the democratic system they have built be dissolved by a reunification that is totally on Beijing's terms even if they are open to the long term idea of some sort of reunification. Failure to account for the views of the people they are trying to reunify with is a massive blindspot for Beijing that adds to the intractability of the dispute.
“In other words, it’s impossible for him to set his life’s mission for the Chinese nation as something entirely alien to what the Chinese nation considers to be right.”
If that’s true why the people cannot vote him out?
Also can someone also explain why random people including John Cena had to apologize because they used the name Taiwan at some point ? How do you reconcile this with the peaceful government?
Forgot to add: If the war in Iran drags on for not just weeks but months and China is still not taking any military action, I don't think any serious people will ask the question "will China attack Taiwan". So I figure I have to write this piece asap, otherwise it will lose relevance.
The other likely reason for China not taking Taiwan now but still having the intent to do so in the future—China’s military is not ready enough despite the US military being distracted and bogged down in Iran.
Let's keep this line here in case the war lasts till end of 2027 and China is still not taking action.
If Iran is able to withstand the US/Zionist onslaught with no end in sight...would China materially support Iran?
China, as well as Russia, have and are currently still supporting Iran. But Iran has been somewhat stubborn about appearing or being a vassal state of Russia or China, and therefore has not fully embraced either of them. They want to be on a similar footing with Russia and China, not below them.
Excellent piece.
May I just add one additional point that might help: holding a territory taken by force is expensive and morally corrosive, especially in this day and age.
It's very odd to me that people think of colonialism and don't take into account the force multiplier that the monopoly over firearms gave to the Western occupiers. When one side is armed with swords (mandating close action combat) and the other side with firearms, you could kill vast numbers of people at a distance safely without endangering your own troops. When troops have to die, it becomes much harder.
With the spread of firearms technology, the cost of maintaining an occupying army increased. You needed more troops, those troops had to be armed and they would be taking greater risks of being killed. You could keep increasing the numbers and weapons, but that becomes an ever greater drain on your treasure to the extent that the amount you can extract from the territory becomes less than the amount spent on maintaining it. When WWII drained the treasuries of the occupying nations so that this expense could no longer be kept up, colonisation also ended. Not because the colonisers were suddenly stricken by a bad bout of morals but because they couldn't afford the cost anymore. And still they had to be forced out with much blood and treasure lost on both sides.
As events in the Middle East and Middle Asia show, you can't bomb a people into submission, and attempts to hold it come at a huge cost. China bombing the province of Taiwan will be a Phyrric victory at best.
The only real way to hold a territory that has been forcibly taken over is to remove the current inhabitants (either forced transfer or genocide, a la Israel) and move in your own people. See what the British did to Scotland and Northern Ireland. And then in this day and age you have to monitor the inhabitants you remove to ensure that they don't set up cells to conduct terrorist attacks. This reinforces the sense of the people of the colony that they are a separate people from your own. It also creates moral corrosion of your own people--see what has happened to the character of the West, twisting itself into pretzels justifying their cruel past or trying to pretend it still isn't happening.
For those who would point to Germany and Japan post World War II, I would point out that resistance had already been bled dry via the wars and, for the elites of those countries, the threat of communism taking their wealth was a mind concentrator: better to side with the Americans who were willing to make you wealthy so that they had a market to sell to than risk your country falling to the communists who would distribute your wealth to the "rabid masses". That dynamic no longer exists.
The Chinese get this. They get that the only way to hold Taiwan and keep Taiwan is for the Taiwanese to voluntarily agree to come back.
People who think only in terms of the short term use of force have been educated by the colonial "adventures" when the massive force multiplier and monopoly over firearms allowed real mass slaughter of the colonised while the colonisers could sip their gin tonics in the safety of their "whites only" clubs, wrapping themselves in the chilly comfort of their hypocrisies. Those days are long gone.
I think taking Taiwan would be hard, but holding it would be easy. China has no problem surveilling and disappearing people. Resistance would be futile. When resistance is obviously futile, resistance is usually minimal.
add to the difficulty is the fact that we all look the same and speak the same language...
Japan uses this to its advantage. The Taiwanese most deeply opposed to reunification have Japanese blood.
From a Chinese perspective, the Western obsession with the idea that China is permanently on the verge of invading Taiwan has always seemed a bit puzzling, especially given the almost complete lack of evidence of any such intention. Until the US-China relationship began souring around 10 years ago, both parties seemed to be consider the status quo to be a win-win relationship, and even if the relationship is now partially on hold, that assessment has not substantially changed. For the few in the West who actually wish to understand the Chinese perspective, these two articles are a great place to start. That said, there is one aspect which might be worth adding: namely, that if for some reason China one day were to feel the need to "take action" as it were in the face of some extreme provocation, the obvious response would not be to invade Taiwan, but rather to blockade it. This is far far simpler and can be used to make a point far more readily than by attempting an extremely messy invasion.
Indeed, I wonder why analysts don’t include siege vs invasion. Taiwan’s main trading partner is China, and it can blockade the island much more easily than invade it. Look at what’s happening to Cuba…
Well China's large military buildup, naval exercises, and continuous testing of Taiwan's airspace are strong indicators that China is at least preparing for the possibility.
The argument presented in the article is too optimistic. Firstly, the US wants Taiwan not only for its semiconductors, but also for its VLSI engineering talents/ecosystem as well as a strategic locale for containing China militarily. This is linked with Japan’s view as Takaichi espoused (and which has been Japan’s point for over a decade prior to Takaichi’s most recent reiteration of their stance).
Secondly, Xi’s track record shows that he will push on policies and decision that he and he alone deems to be most beneficial or strategic. The almost overnight lifting of Zero-Covid is a good recent example. The reining in of China’s tech elite (Jack Ma and others) is another—no one must have the remote possibility of challenging the CCP. Xi and leaders do not care about the public’s view of the Taiwan situation (what can the docile Chinese people do anyway?) with the exception guarding against revolutions (8926, white paper demonstrations, etc). The propaganda apparatus and security forces will ensure this.
Lastly, bring up a recent historic TV show to convey how the CCP of today thinks and acts is just… naive at best. The CCP operates eons differently than the emperors of old. I mean, you could bring out stories from 三国 even the fictional 水浒传—those have no bearings on modern day CCP decision making.
I will say that Xi and the CCP do prefer a peaceful solution. But make no mistake, he will make himself go down in history one way or another. Achieving reunification is likely the only way to do so. If Taiwan doesn’t take the carrot, he will use the stick. Achieving the so-called score of 30% using military invasion is likely much more preferable than the 0% score from failing unification during Xi Dada’s lifetime.
I like your reference to zero covid and the reopening. It's an important data point showing he is a man who knows when to stop.
As for that TV show, 太平年, an important detail I didn't mention in the essay was that the show was very prominently funded by the central propaganda/publicity department as well as the propaganda department of Zhejiang, the power base of Xi and many of his colleagues. Maybe this will change your assessment a little bit.
The reason I deliberately did not mention it in the essay is precisely that I don't think this will mean anything in real terms, and I don’t want you to overinterpret the significance of a TV show. However, the fact that the show exists, and the popularity it enjoys, is also a data point for me to gauge where the national mood is.
Well, with zero-Covid and reopening, there’s at least 2 ways to interpret it. One is as you said, Xi being someone who knows when to stop. The second is that he was so incompetent that his hand was forced by the rising anti-zero-covid sentiments like the white paper movement. Both are valid I believe, and both can be true at the same time.
As for the TV show being funded by the central propaganda department, I see that as a part of the CCP using their vast propaganda apparatus to sway the national mood. It’s in the same vein as the anti-Japanese sentiments from the movie 南京照相馆电影 (which I’ve yet to see, but I’ve read that it stoke those sentiments last year).
So the apparatus “sway the national mood“ to accept a peaceful reunification? Yeah, that just proves my point.
And about 南京照相馆 stoking anti-Japanese sentiments? Man, I don’t think you know what you are talking about here. It's a very nuanced film. Better watch it yourself.
What movie? Can you translate to English 🙏🏻
Dead to Rights
I have watched Swords to Plowshares on Viki Rakuten. It is fascinating. As you so well put it:
“what’s interesting about a Chinese TV drama that you can’t find in American dramas is that this one not only has no problem of using an epic peace, not an epic battle, as a way to wrap up a big show, but also takes the pains to show you the deliberations about the lengths those characters go to in order to avoid violence.”
Then it also made me wonder if there is a deliberate message, contrasting the price of destructive wars, with a peaceful and successful merger.
A side note, the Confucian quotes in some of the Chinese Historical dramas are quite thought provoking. I look forward to more of that philosophy being shared with the west, in a form that they may more easily consume.
I just kinda wandered in, but this is fascinating. A completely different history and set of cultural associations leads to a completely different strategic culture, rational from their point of view! (Indeed it seems more rational from mine as well.)
I sorta feel like 'winning a war to have a legacy' is more of a US thing and we are projecting that onto them. But yeah, in a country with roughly stable boundaries for the past 2000 years managing your empire is gonna be a bigger deal than trying to take more territory (which is how the USA grew).
Stupid question: how does the wu-wen distinction in Chinese masculinity map onto the geek-jock divide in American? My broad impression is that it's vaguely analogous but a different side is preferred, but I'd love to talk to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Lol, that’s a very interesting analogy, never thought of it like that. It doesn’t feel wrong to me
Though, I wouldn't be surprised to find China using a feigned interest in invasion to force a pullback of US forces in Iran.
Thanks for an excellent analysis, with which I agree totally. I've always believed, and have for at least 40 years told fiends interested in the topic, that, for China, "没有台湾问题，只有美国问题“ (Taiwan is never a problem, US is the only problem)。
Your observation that China has learned through eons of hard lessons that war can exacerbate existing governmental imbalances, leading to implosion, may be a lesson the U.S. is creating for itself.
The nation was already deeply polarized, and its government was dysfunctional even before Trump chose to engage in an unprovoked war. His status both domestically and internatonally are dysmal, and the midterm elections will likely be catastrophic.
Trump has his own private military, and a violent implosion and a civil war are not simply fantasies. Taiwan may be abandoned as a casualty of the Iran War fiasco, triggering unexpected consequences in American internal affairs.
I trust the Taiwanese to do the pragmatic thing in finally reconciling with their "womb mates."
Sun Tzu said
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
The people of mainland China and Taiwan are “same womb”. As Americans learned from our Civil War, when brothers fight brothers, the nation’s sons die tragically.
The big problem with your point RE Xi’s ersatz obsession with legacy is, even if it’s not *in evidence*, (1) it’s still a very catastrophic failure mode that can’t be ignored, and (2) the failure mode is common to other motivations/obsessions, none of which can be ignored.
what "very catastrophic failure mode" are you suggesting here?
Like my last point in the essay, if Xi feels certain that peaceful reunification is doomed, then war will be firmly on the table.
The strategic center here is not just force projection but prestige optimization: if peaceful reunification yields higher legitimacy than a destructive invasion, then military power becomes leverage for inevitability rather than conquest.
I am not doubting that this is all the calculus, but it seems pretty nieve in 2026 to think that you can simply out-military your way into getting a country to give up their independence. There's like five wars in the last five years were a very transparently outmatched country took cataclysmic losses to avoid giving an inch let alone give it all.
Perhaps the 180 degree transformation of “Joe Rogan of Taiwan” will help you understand why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Chen
I am sure Ukraine and Gaza and Iran all have people that will write about how amazing and wonderful their enemy is, but all still chose rubble over capitulation. Like I said I do not question the CCP belief that peaceful unification through threat is possible, but I strongly question whether it actually *is* possible.
I would guess that one simple answer to the question “why doesn’t China attack now?” is that when it comes to military planning and readiness, if you’ve planned to be ready in 2027, speeding that up by a year is logistical and strategic nightmare. There would be a billion details of supply, training, etc all designed to peak at the same time. Changing that on the fly, even by a year, would be incredibly daunting.
Sure. Come back and check whether there is an invasion in Dec 2027
I think there are three options: war, an economic blockade leading to unification, and peaceful and voluntary unification. Of the three, economic blockade seems the most likely. Voluntary unification seems improbably because the West will intervene in Taiwanese domestic politics (as they have done in Ukraine). War is unlikely since economic blockade is a viable path to unification. Just my view.
This is something I genuinely disagree to an extreme: I don’t disagree with the idea of finding a better opportunity such as America is fully dragged into this war later. But I cannot tolerate to think 70% of the 23mil people who are essentialist enemies are to be peacefully engaged, essentially doing the same minority polices of Hu Yaobang that is harmful for the majority. China cannot peacefully deal with them and the CCP’s track record of doing stupidly “progressive” stuff such as tolerating Japanese orphans to stay in China (should’ve been executed) and its lack of retribution against its enemies make them look at a paper tiger. It’s pure cope right now to think everyone is afraid of Xi. Guess what Arabs are scared of Israel. You know what they’ve done?? So consider yours truly sincerely don’t believe in a peaceful unification without attrition of local enemies. Thank you for your attention to this matter. :)
"we must first accept an uncomfortable, fundamental truth: the “Taiwan Question” has never been a bilateral issue between Beijing and Taipei. It is, and always has been, a function of the U.S.-China relationship."
But Taipei is vital to the equation. Peaceful reunification won't happen if people in Taiwan resist it. Right now Beijing has nothing appealing to offer the people of Taiwan and can only offer coercion and intimidation. Most people in Taiwan are distrustful of the CCP and do not wish to see the democratic system they have built be dissolved by a reunification that is totally on Beijing's terms even if they are open to the long term idea of some sort of reunification. Failure to account for the views of the people they are trying to reunify with is a massive blindspot for Beijing that adds to the intractability of the dispute.
“In other words, it’s impossible for him to set his life’s mission for the Chinese nation as something entirely alien to what the Chinese nation considers to be right.”
If that’s true why the people cannot vote him out?
Also can someone also explain why random people including John Cena had to apologize because they used the name Taiwan at some point ? How do you reconcile this with the peaceful government?