Beijing has warned Taiwanese people against acting “two-faced” on the issue of “Taiwan independence” after television host Kevin Tsai Kang-yong attended a campaign rally for a Taipei mayoral candidate labelled a separatist by Beijing. The episode underscores the political risks facing Taiwanese entertainers working on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “No individual or force may act as a ‘two-faced person’ – reaping the benefits of the mainland’s development while simultaneously colluding with...

Beijing has warned Taiwanese people against acting “two-faced” on the issue of “Taiwan independence” after television host Kevin Tsai Kang-yong attended a campaign rally for a Taipei mayoral candidate labelled a separatist by Beijing. The episode underscores the political risks facing Taiwanese entertainers working on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “No individual or force may act as a ‘two-faced person’ – reaping the benefits of the mainland’s development while simultaneously colluding with...

Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te has welcomed talks between Washington and Beijing aimed at reducing the risk of conflict. Lai’s annual Double Tenth address on Saturday, marking the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, also called for democracies to work together to safeguard regional peace and for the Taiwanese people’s right to exist to be respected. He also warned that mainland China was trying to put pressure on the island to change the status...

Recent interactions involving the US and Taiwan are not expected to derail the current momentum in relations between Washington and mainland China, according to diplomatic analysts. Beijing was taking a pragmatic approach to navigating the complexities of the Taiwan issue, they said, but the fate of a US$14 billion arms package for the island remained a key concern. During President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the United States, Xi urged his hosts to “adhere to the correct position of opposing...

In 2019, President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to publicly call for the exploration of detailed proposals for governing Taiwan after reunification. Seven years later, the first proposals from a handful of the mainland’s leading research institutes have either been finalised or are nearing completion, the South China Morning Post has learned. Rather than setting out a single fixed model, scholars involved in those studies told the SCMP there should be different scenarios based on...

A formal peace deal between Beijing and Taipei should be signed to build trust before discussions on post-reunification political arrangements, a prominent Taiwanese political scientist has argued at a security conference in Beijing. Chang Ya-chung, who heads the Taiwan-based Sun Yat-sen School advocacy group, said the “one country, two systems” formula, which has been applied to Hong Kong and Macau, had so far failed to resonate in Taiwanese society. “If reunification means that one side, with...