China Is Tightening the Screws on Taiwan. Will Trump Act

China Is Tightening the Screws on Taiwan. Will Trump Act – and Risk Losing Beijing?

A Taiwan air force jet escorts a plane out of Taiwan airspace carrying Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou from Taiwan to Singapore for a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015. Taiwan’s Ma and China’s Xi are the first leaders from the two sides to meet since their territories split during the Chinese civil war in 1949. Ma is the successor to Chiang Kai-shek, whose Nationalists retreated to the island, while Xi now leads Mao Zedong’s victorious Communists, who set up government in Beijing. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Posted: February 22nd, 2018

Bottom line: Beijing aimed skyward with its latest attempt to expand areas of influence, unilaterally opening up several flight routes including one between Shanghai and Hong Kong that is uncomfortably close to Taiwanese airspace — another step in its diplomatic and military pressure campaign to coerce Taiwan to rejoin China. The move reinvigorated U.S. Congressional efforts to lobby the Trump administration to support Taiwan, but the White House isn’t likely to be too forceful in its response, as it needs Beijing to keep pressure on a nuclear North Korea.

Background: Tensions in the Taiwan Strait have been icy since an independence-leaning party won both the presidential election and a majority of seats in Taiwan’s parliament in 2016.

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