Beginning today, China is holding a “Taiwan Work Conference,” with sources from Beijing indicating that the meeting would establish a special task force to respond to Taiwan’s local elections.
Local elections are scheduled for Nov. 28 for mayoral and city council positions in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as for county commissioners, mayors, councilors, borough wardens and other local representatives in the other 16 counties and county-level cities.
The meeting would be chaired by Wang Yi (王毅), member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Standing Committee and director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, sources said.
Photo: Bloomberg
Sources say the objectives of the meeting are to designate this year as critical for the “one country, two systems” framework and to set priorities for Taiwan for the year.
These include mobilizing proxies within Taiwan to fully block US efforts to arm Taiwan, including arms sales, and promoting integration between Chinese and Taiwanese supply chains by offering incentives such as tariff concessions, with a focus on cutting off Taiwan-US supply chain cooperation.
Areas of work include creating favorable conditions for unification — designating this year as a key year for promoting “one country, two systems,” attempting to reinforce the legal pretext of the “one China “principle externally while rallying pro-unification forces within Taiwan and combining “united front” and cyberwarfare operations to interfere with pro-independence forces in Taiwan.
Sources said that during the meeting, it would discuss preparations for a possible meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), which they added is tentatively scheduled to take place next month.
In response, KMT spokeswoman Chiang Yi-chen (江怡臻) said last night that there is no information regarding Cheng’s visit to China, saying that any such reports are speculative.
Meanwhile, commenting on the special task force targeting Taiwan’s local elections, Taiwanese academics yesterday assessed that China might launch differentiated economic and trade incentives for different counties and cities, such as purchasing agricultural products, easing import restrictions and resuming group tourism.
China might continue to send signals such as saying “cross-strait relations can be unlocked as long as central government policies are adjusted,” framing local elections as a choice between “pragmatism and ideology,” they said.
Former Tunghai University Center for Mainland China and Regional Development Research deputy director Hung Pu-chao (洪浦釗) added that what China cares about might not be which party wins local elections, but whether it can use local-level electoral maneuvering to reshape Taiwanese society’s imagination of cross-strait relations and policy choices.
Additional reporting by Lin Hisn-chan
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