China’s strongarm tactics in Taiwan will only redouble after historic election

livemint.com:

Taiwanese voters have shrugged off warnings by China that the election of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Lai Ching-te to the presidency would increase the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, including a potentially violent takeover of the island nation. China’s strong-arm tactics under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping, who has vowed that the island’s ‘reunification’ with the mainland is a historical inevitability, have failed for now. But that does not mean that these tactics will not continue or that regional geopolitics is any less precariously placed.

Taiwan’s political dynamics are important to India, too, for several reasons. The principal one is India’s interest in Chinese actions and capabilities in the Taiwan Strait, and the implications these might have for its own boundary dispute with China. There is also growing interest in the potential for India-Taiwan economic cooperation, particularly in high-tech manufacturing sectors.

There is increasing attention to whether or not Taiwanese companies will substantially shift their manufacturing capabilities out of China to India as Taiwan faces Chinese political interference and economic coercion. The DPP, more than the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), has been a big votary of the shift to India. But there is a degree of disappointment in Indian government circles at the slow pace of this shift of Taiwanese manufacturing to India.