NIKKEI Asia Xi comment on 'resolving' Taiwan raises concern, Taipei scholars say Beijing's positive messaging surprises U.S. analysts, but skepticism persists Ken Moriyasu - November 21, 2023

 NIKKEI Asia

Xi comment on 'resolving' Taiwan raises concern, Taipei scholars say

Beijing's positive messaging surprises U.S. analysts, but skepticism persists

China's President Xi Jinping attends a gala dinner on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco on Nov. 15.    © Reuters

KEN MORIYASU, Nikkei Asia diplomatic correspondent

November 21, 2023 12:30 JST

WASHINGTON -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's comment on the need to move toward a "resolution" of the Taiwan issue was the talk of think tanks on Monday, as China watchers analyze last week's summit with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The overall assessment was positive. Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he was surprised that the optics of the summit were "much more positive" than he expected. There was a softness in tone, and Xi seemed happy during and after the meeting, Blanchette said.

"All of the camera shots and videos of the two leaders talking together is by design," he said. That design, "is in and of itself a political signal."

But James Lee, an assistant research fellow at the Taipei-based research institute Academia Sinica, focused on one quote Xi mixed into his messaging. According to a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters after last Wednesday's summit, Xi insisted that Beijing's preference was for peaceful "reunification" with Taiwan, but Xi also said, "At some point we need to move towards resolution more generally."

Lee told a Stimson Center seminar that while affirming China's support for a peaceful approach to cross-strait disputes, "Xi did say to Biden he did not think that this dispute can be postponed indefinitely, and he affirmed his belief in the need for a resolution. That kind of statement ... it's something that would create concern in Taiwan."

Lee said it will come down to China's credibility among the Taiwanese people whether this will be seen as a positive step or potentially dangerous.

He gave an example. China often proposes to the Taiwanese side that if the island accepts the 1992 consensus -- an alleged, unofficial understanding reached between the two sides that there is one "China," but the two disagree about what "China" means -- then cross-strait tensions will diminish significantly.

If China has credibility, such statements might be believed in Taiwan, Lee said. But if China is not credible, many would simply see that as "a slippery slope toward further pressure," Lee said.

He pointed to a just-released survey by Academia Sinica in which only 9.3% of respondents agreed that China was a trustworthy country, while 55.3% disagreed. Perceptions of China's trustworthiness fell from 13.5% in a 2021 survey.

The U.S. enjoys a higher score in credibility, at about 34%. But this is also a significant drop from over 45% in 2021. Hsin-Hsin Pan, who helped conduct the survey, said this was likely due to the war in Ukraine and growing awareness over what a potential Taiwan Strait conflict might look like.

At a news conference after the U.S.-China summit, Biden was asked if he was still committed to defending Taiwan militarily from a Chinese attack, despite the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Biden did not answer specifically, despite having done so four times previously during his presidency.

Asked whether Biden's nonanswer may affect Taiwanese confidence in the U.S., Wen-Chin Wu, another associate research fellow at Academia Sinica, told the Stimson Center seminar that unless Biden says something clearly positive or negative, it will likely not affect perceptions among the Taiwanese.

Meanwhile, analysts on the U.S. side said that Xi probably needed the meeting as much or more than Biden. "Skepticism about Xi Jinping is sky high, particularly inside China," CSIS Senior Adviser Scott Kennedy said.

CSIS's Blanchette said: "This was not just the United States going to Beijing and essentially begging for the meeting. The administration has been saying for weeks that they were seeing lots of signs that China actively wanted this meeting. The visuals coming out of the Chinese side of the language from the statement, and even Xi Jinping's opening statement to President Biden that was captured by news cameras, bore that out."

But skepticism remains. Elbridge Colby, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, said that whether Xi's olive branch is for real should be measured against China's massive military buildup.

"If China had no intent to use force against Taiwan or beyond, why would it be building and training a massive modern military to do just that?" he said. "That's a much more costly and revealing signal than what Xi says to Biden.