Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) has wrapped up a nine-day trip to China, including meetings with some of the Communist Party’s highest-ranking officials, amid hopes its links with Beijing will help boost its chances in presidential elections that are due to be held next year. So was this one, earning a rebuke from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the body that oversees Taipei’s relations with Beijing. Experts like Liu Fu-kuo, a professor and research fellow at the Institute of International Relations at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, agree. Issue of Taiwan’s identityIn the years since, Taiwan’s national identity as somewhere distinct from China has just grown stronger. Despite the sabre rattling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Beijing did not cancel direct flights to Taiwan — only possible since 2018 — until the global pandemic made it necessary for public health reasons, notes Templeman.
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