TAIPEI: Taiwan's vice president and front-runner to be the island's next president, William Lai, is in the eye of the storm after China launched widely expected drills near Taiwan in
near Taiwan in an angry response to his brief visits to the United States this month.
In 2018, the then premier told parliament he was a"practical worker for Taiwan independence", causing one Chinese newspaper, the widely-read Global Times, to call for China to issue an international arrest warrant for Lai and prosecute him under China's 2005 Anti-Secession Law. What worries Beijing is the idea that Lai could try to change the status quo by declaring the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan, which Lai has said he will not do."I think China hates him, really hates him," said Wu Xinbo, an international relations professor at Shanghai's Fudan University."It is because if he is elected as the leader of Taiwan, he may come to advance his goal of Taiwan independence, which will provoke a crisis across the Taiwan Strait.
"Given that Beijing has become increasingly hawkish, I think the next Taiwanese presidency would very likely be characterised by a series of grey zone conflict and economic coercion. I think the intensity would go up."
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