By Kerry Brown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s comments while meeting with former Taiwanese Vice President Vincent Siew at the APEC Summit in Bali were, on the surface at least, quite ominous. Recognizing the improvement in cross straits relations since President Ma Ying-jeou’s election in 2008, Xi went on to say that “the political disagreements that exist between the two sides must reach a final resolution, step by step, and these issues cannot be passed on from generation to generation.”
That this early in his tenure Xi feels emboldened enough to make this comment shows underscores his confidence in his own leadership. Hu Jintao gave the impression of being glad to let the status quo persist and focus on China’s internal issues. As long as the leadership in Taiwan did not stray towards the dreaded territory of asserting its independence, anything else was tolerable. And with Ma’s election in 2008, the provocations from the Chen Shui-bian era at least stopped.
Xi, when he talks about Taiwan and the region generally, adopts a lofty patriarchal air, as though China is now Asia’s big brother, and under its nurturing wing the Asian century can truly be said to have arrived. On domestic issues too, Xi has an imperious air. His family background has evidently given him a sense of historic destiny and entitlement. Does he really think that this can now reach to solving one of the most intractable issues left over from the Cold War and the Chinese Civil War some six decades ago?
Read the full story at The Diplomat