New Delhi: The much-anticipated meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month in San Francisco was not all that smooth as one thought. NBC News has now reported that Xi bluntly told Biden that Beijing would reunify Taiwan with mainland China. Xi also said he had not set a timeline yet for the reunification of Taiwan.

Xi told Biden that China’s preference is to retake Taiwan peacefully and not by force, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing US officials.

William J. Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had said this February as “a matter of intelligence” that Xi had ordered the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, according to a Reuters report.

While Burns clarified that this did not mean China would conduct the invasion in 2027, he said the intelligence pointed to Xi’s “ambitions” with regards to Taiwan.

NBC News reported, citing two current US officials and one former US official who briefed on the meeting between the two leaders, that Xi made it clear to Biden that he had not set a time frame for the reunification of Taiwan with China.

Xi’s comments came at the 15 November summit that was meant to deescalate tensions between the US and China.

Xi has in the past too made it publicly clear that he intends to see the reunification of Taiwan with China, and his words to Biden further spell out his stand.

However, his fresh comments have drawn notice of US officials given their timing — the self-governing Taiwan is set to hold presidential elections on 13 January, 2024.

Beijing is reported to have already ramped up efforts to influence Taiwanese voters to ensure that the opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) would defeat the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The KMT wants friendlier relations between Taiwan and China while Beijing has termed the DPP as “separatist”.

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Taiwan presidential election 2024 

On 13 January, the 23 million people of Taiwan, which has been governed independently of China since 1949, will elect a new president. Incumbent Tsai Ing-wen from the DPP will complete her second term in January 2024.

The two main presidential candidates are Lai Ching-te, current vice president of Taiwan representing the DPP, and Hou Yu-ih, mayor of New Taipei city representing the KMT. A third candidate, Ko Wen-je, representing the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), is also running for the post.

An opinion poll released this week by local online media outlet My Formosa indicated a tight three-way race, with Lai being the frontrunner with 35 per centsupport from the respondents. Hou had the support of 31.7 percent of the respondents, while Ko was third with 18.2 percent support among the respondents.

The current administration under Tsai has seen ties between China and Taiwan reach new lows, reportedly leading to an increase of military activity across the Taiwan strait by Beijing.

The main reason for tense ties between the two neighbouring countries lies in the fact that the DPP rejects the “1992 consensus” agreed between the KMT, which then ruled Taiwan, and China, according to a report by US think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The KMT believes the “1992 consensus” recognises a “One China” policy with different interpretations of what this contains (Republic of China or People’s Republic of China), while the CPC believes the agreement states that “the two sides of the strait belong to one China and would work together to seek national reunification”.

Taiwan’s KMT-drafted constitution continues to recognise China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, and the South China Sea as part of the ROC.

The DPP has long rejected any such consensus with China, and Tsai in her inaugural address in 2016 made it clear that she was the “elected president in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China”, and would “safeguard the sovereignty and territory of the Republic of China”, the CFR report states.

This was, however, rejected by China and it severed all official contact with Taiwan.

Tsai and the DPP were re-elected in 2020, with the DPP-led Pan-Green coalition winning a comfortable majority in the unicameral Legislative Yuan (parliament of Taiwan) with 61 of 113 seats — which makes the 2024 election an important inflection point for cross-strait relations.

‘One China’

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the CPC has made it clear that there is only “One China”, that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it and the government of the PRC is the sole legitimate representative of China as a part of this policy.

The PRC was established on 1 October, 1949, succeeding the Republic of China (ROC), which had ruled Beijing from 1912. The Kuomintang (government of the ROC), retained control of Taiwan, and shifted its administration to the island, and claimed representation of China in international organisations, according to information published by the PRC.

In 1971, the United Nations, however, recognised the PRC as the only “legitimate” representative of China and expelled the representatives of the ROC from the UN.

Since then, over 180 countries of the UN, including India, the US and member states of the European Union, have recognised the “One China” policy and the PRC as the legitimate representative of China.

Only 13 countries continue to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan (ROC) — Paraguay, Haiti, Belize, Guatemala, Eswatini, the Holy See and the Marshall Islands, to name a few.

Washington D.C. has made it clear that while it “acknowledges” the ‘One China’ policy, it rejects the use of force to settle the issue, noted CFR’s report. It has long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, making it unclear whether the US would defend Taipei’s sovereignty, while maintaining close ties with Beijing and selling arms to Taiwan.

Biden has at various points in his tenure attempted to clarify that the US would defend Taiwan in the event of the use of force by China for reunification, upending four decades of foreign policy thinking. However, his administration has walked back on the president’s comments each time, adding a further layer of complication to the issue of Taiwan, according to a May report of the CFR.

A readout published by the White House on the 15 November summit between Biden and Xi stated that the US was against any “unilateral changes” to the status quo and called for a peaceful resolution to the question of Taiwan.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)

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