Xi woos Taiwan opposition ahead of pivotal presidential vote

Bloomberg

Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears to be recalibrating his hardline approach to Taiwan in the year before the island holds a presidential election that his government’s preferred negotiating partner has a shot at winning.
Kuomintang Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia is expected to visit China on Wednesday, the latest in a series of friendly gestures between the one-time foes in the Chinese Civil War. Hsia is expected to visit several Chinese cities over nine days, including the capital, where he’s likely to meet Song Tao, a former top Communist Party diplomat who now oversees affairs across the Taiwan Strait.
Hsia would also meet Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning, the Taipei-based Liberty Times has reported, citing people it did not identify. Wang is the No. 4 official in China’s ruling Communist Party.
Beijing has also signaled it intends to resume imports from more than 60 Taiwanese food companies that were among exporters it barred last year. That move pulls back on an unofficial punishment China has used to show displeasure with President Tsai Ing-wen for activities such as fostering ties with the US. “Now as Taiwan’s presidential campaign is about to start, it’s a good time for Beijing to lessen its sanctions against Taiwan because if it doesn’t, sanctions are going to be a major liability for Beijing-friendly politicians in Taiwan,” said Wen-ti Sung, a specialist on Taiwanese politics and cross-strait relations at Australian National University. “That’s what we’re seeing now.”
While it’s too early to determine the extent of the shift, the strategy coincides with China adopting a more conciliatory tone in its dealings with the US and its allies since Xi and President Joe Biden met in Indonesia in November. The fence-mending is aimed at addressing a collapse in public support across the developed world and refocusing on an economy that has been battered by three years of strict Covid Zero rules.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to visit Beijing to start this week, in the first such trip by a top US diplomat in more than four years. Blinken postponed those plans due to an uproar over a Chinese balloon that the US says was spying on the country. Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao also met with his Australian counterpart Don Farrell.