No soul-searching for Xi Jinping after Taiwan rebuffs China in election

ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS

No soul-searching for Xi Jinping after Taiwan rebuffs China in election

Chinese President Xi Jinping (center) speaks during an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jan. 2, 2019. Just as China's uncompromising approach in Hong Kong has strengthened the city's pro-democracy forces, so far its tough approach to Taiwan has only reduced support for its stated goal of unification. | AP

By Samson Ellis and Peter Martin
Bloomberg

Jan 13, 2020

TAIPEI/BEIJING – In a democracy, two resounding election defeats in a matter of months might prompt some soul-searching in the losing camp.

In China, however, a snub at the polls in territories it claims is more a minor setback rather than a sign of a flawed strategy. President Xi Jinping’s government showed that yet again in the wake of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide win Saturday, which came shortly after Hong Kong’s pro-democracy forces gave Beijing a black eye in a November election.

“This temporary counter-current is just a bubble under the tide of the times,” the official state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary after Tsai’s win. Blaming “anti-China political forces in the West” and calling the election a “fluke,” it warned that “reunification cannot be stopped by any force or anyone.”