Richard Bush, Brookings
Will the two sides be able to find a mutually acceptable place on the spectrum in between clarity and ambiguity? Judging by Beijing’s forceful insistence, probably not. They probably know that President-elect Tsai is not willing to alienate her base for the sake of cross-Strait relations, which suggests that perhaps their strategy is to set the bar so high that she cannot clear it. Beijing sees no reason to make life easy for Tsai and the DPP—it would like her and her party to lose power as soon as possible.
