China tries to deepen economic ties with Taiwan yet more

EARLY THIS year China’s leader, Xi Jinping, grandly repeated his country’s longstanding vow to bring the democratic island of Taiwan back into the Chinese fold, if necessary by force. But force has never been China’s preferred option: it has long sought to integrate the Taiwanese economy with its own, in part in the hope that independence might come to seem an impossible or even undesirable goal. At times China also tries to harm the Taiwanese economy, usually to discredit governments led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which would like to abandon the official pretence that Taiwan is part of China. But all the while, the effort to bind the island to the mainland continues.

When Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP became president in 2016, the Chinese government abruptly cut the flow of tourists from the mainland and called off all high-level contacts with Taiwanese authorities—a boycott it has maintained ever since. But on November 4th China announced 26 measures intended to strengthen economic ties, permitting Taiwanese businesses to invest in 5G mobile networks and airlines, for instance, and to issue bonds in China. There were also fillips for ordinary Taiwanese, such as allowing them to seek help from Chinese consulates when travelling—something that has happened on occasion in the past but has now been formalised. Last year the Chinese government unveiled a list of 31 measures in the same vein, intended to make life easier for the 400,000-odd Taiwanese living in China.