Taipei, Jan. 17 (CNA) Scholars believe that the cross-Taiwan Strait status quo will continue following the victory of Lai Ching-te (賴清德) in Taiwan's Jan. 13 presidential election, but other elements need to be factored in when considering its long-term stability.
Jacques deLisle, director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was invited to speak on Taiwan-U.S.-China relations at the two-day CommonWealth Economic Forum in Taipei that began on Wednesday.
He said that although Lai stressed continuity with President Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) approach to the issues that matter most to U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, there is still uncertainty as to how much continuity there will be in his foreign and national security team beside Vice President-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), a choice that has "offered a lot of assurances on continuity."
For Beijing, despite the usual rhetoric such as Taiwan's election is an internal affair, "the one new thing in the Chinese response was to stress that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) got a minority vote," deLisle said.
"This is a hopeful sign because it suggests that China hasn't decided that Taiwan is a completely lost cause," he added.
The U.S. reaction has also been standard in congratulating the people of Taiwan and emphasizing U.S. interest in peace, stability, and peaceful resolution, he said, and there are "other pieces of U.S. policy" -- though less evident in the direct response -- that are still built into the story.
Stating that the United States does not support Taiwan's formal independence is one, and "[saying it] isn't necessarily concessional to China."
The emphasis that the U.S. has no preference about the outcome of cross-strait relations as long as it is peaceful and accepted by both sides, is another, he added.
However, this latter stance will become "more difficult because what would count as a truly voluntary accommodation is much murkier in the era of subtle coercion, grey zone tactics and disinformation," deLisle said.
Although Beijing still declares "Tsai was unthinkable and Lai is worse than Tsai," by and large there has been "a calibrated, measured Chinese response." "They understand they don't want to do everything at once but hold some tools in reserve."
Regarding U.S. strategic ambiguity, deLisle said in a world in which "Beijing has been the assertive party and Taiwan been pro-stability," the signal that the U.S. will defend Taiwan in some extreme circumstances of Chinese coercion but will be less willing to help Taiwan if Taiwan is the cause of the problem "has gotten lost."
A security dilemma has arisen as the U.S. and China both see themselves as trying to preserve the status quo and the other side trying to undermine it.
"It becomes very hard in that context to do deterrence properly because the U.S. has to say ever more to Taiwan [to show its backing] and China sees that as [the U.S. trying] to change the status quo," he said.
On Bejing's possible long-term view of Lai's administration, deLisle said he thought Beijing is ready to tolerate the Lai's victory for four years, "but as we near a possible reelection for Lai, there is the risk that China will say we don't want to see a fourth term that will be a more permanent loss of any possibility of eventual peaceful unification."
As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) will probably stay for another term, there is also the question of when he will see the Taiwan problem as "a legacy issue," deLisle said.
"I don't think there's any timetable. But you do have to worry if he thinks that there is no possibility of peaceful unification, or if the window starts to close ... if the balance of power ceases to be in China's favor," he underlined.
In addition, a possible Trump presidency would mean the U.S. being volatile and isolationist, deLisle said. "It will make the allies feel that the U.S. no longer has their back ... It will make Japan and [South] Korea rethink where they are in this chaotic world, which is also a troublesome one for Taiwan."
Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center and the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo chair in Taiwan Studies at the U.S. think tank Brookings Institution, who was also invited to provide insights on the three-way relationship, said his expectation is that "there will be turbulence, but it should not be out of bounds," as "none of the three leaders in Taipei, Beijing or Washington benefit from an uncontrolled spike in tensions."
In the short run, Beijing will focus on repairing China's economy, but it will also continue to "apply pressure on Taiwan including by operating militarily more frequently and in closer proximity to Taiwan ... [as] part of a Beijing's long term effort to wear down the psychological will of the people of Taiwan," Hass said.
While saying that it is possible there could be substantive exchanges between two sides of the Taiwan Strait and "communication shrinks miscalculation," Hass added "I don't think that anyone in Washington presumes that the problem resides in Taipei."
"It's very clear from Washington's perspective that the problem resides in Beijing, and it's Beijing's stubborn unwillingness to engage directly with Taiwan's elected leader that is an impediment to cross-strait progress," Hass said.
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