Description

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As Taiwan heads into turbulent waters under the leadership of pro-independence firebrand William Lai Ching-te, this book takes an incisive look at the forces shaping cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan. Lai's strident calls for separating Taiwan's future from the Chinese mainland's threats have won him admiration on the self-governing island. But his defiant ideas also provoke Beijing's fears of creeping "separatism" from what it views as a breakaway Chinese province.
Delving into Lai's biography and Beijing's playbook, the book analyzes the colliding Chinese and Taiwanese nationalist narratives now on a collision course. Through the lens of Lai's meteoric political rise, it illuminates the passions and anxieties define this fraught relationship. Exploring scenarios from delicate coexistence to total conflagration, the book considers whether doomsday over Taiwan is destined - or can still be avoided through understanding. Lucid and insightful, this work sheds key light on the greatest powder keg in US-China relations now primed to explode.