THE LONG VIEW

Behind the dry announcement of a new cross-strait affairs chief lies a script written decades ago—one where personnel become prophecy. When Taiwan names a DPP loyalist to manage relations with Beijing, it’s not merely a bureaucratic reshuffle; it’s a coded declaration, understood instantly across the strait. We’ve seen this film before: in 1995, when Lee Teng-hui’s Cornell visit shattered diplomatic calm, or in 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen’s election froze official channels for eight years. Each time, the mechanism of dialogue—SEF and ARATS—was reduced to a ghost of its former self, not by decree, but by the quiet withdrawal of political will. What’s striking is not the tension, but the predictability: the players change, the lines evolve, but the stage remains the same. Even the language of 'scepticism' from Beijing is a ritual utterance, the first move in a well-rehearsed sequence that could lead to silence, sanctions, or simulations—military drills that signal resolve without crossing the threshold of war. And yet, beneath it all, the deeper truth persists: Taiwan’s identity is no longer negotiable in Taipei, just as sovereignty is non-negotiable in Beijing. The appointments, the statements, the drills—they are not attempts to resolve the issue, but performances designed to manage its perpetual suspension [Friedman, G., 2020, 'The Next 100 Years']. —Marcus Ashworth Dispatch from Signals S0