Analysis: The two words that are essential to avoiding war over Taiwan | ErykBagshaw
As Nancy Pelosi prepared to board her plane to leave Taiwan on Wednesday night, Chinese state media was working overtime to justify all the fuss.
The tell is in Beijing’s emphasis on “Taiwan separatist forces”. The term is a favourite of Chinese government-controlled media, ministers and their departments because it allows China to create an enemy it can use to drive nationalist sentiment at home. It was repeated at least 20 times in Chinese government announcements condemning Pelosi’s visit.
Popular support for formal independence has fallen in Taiwan from 54 per cent in 2020 to 46.6 per cent in 2021, according to the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, and despite some political support a decade ago, a much more aggressive and more powerful China has meant no mainstream Taiwanese politician is advocating for a referendum that could start a nuclear war.
Observers hope careful rhetoric can keep the wire steady for now, but risks loom on the horizon. Pelosi’s visit gave China the excuse to practise what would otherwise have been an outrageously provocative act: a blockade of Taiwan. “What they’re doing now is to show the Chinese national audience, ‘I have the ability to use the military. I am going to show you this very visually’,” says Sung.“China is saying well, ‘I’m a superpower, I’m going to do things on my own timeline at my own pace,” says Sung. “I’m not going to dance to the tune of some soon-to-retire 80-something-year-old or the so-called fragment of Taiwan separatist forces who are bound for the dustbin of history’.
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