Taiwan’s Democratic Subjectivity and the Politics of Peace – Taiwan Insight

Written by Percy Yixuanchen Yu.

Image credit: TaiwanPlus News/Facebook.

A diagnostic moment

The April 10 meeting in Beijing between Xi Jinping and Kuomintang Chairman Cheng Li-wun was always likely to attract easy labels: thaw, breakthrough, betrayal. None are quite right. What happened next makes this even clearer. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it detected 16 Chinese military planes operating near the island around the same time Xi met Cheng. Two days later, Beijing announced ten new measures for Taiwanincluding relaxed tourist restrictions and measures to facilitate food sales. A week later, a major Taiwanese business group publicly urged Beijing and Taipei to keep politics out of trade and tourism. Then, on April 22, President Lai Ching-te canceled planned trip to Eswatini after several African states denied access to flyoverin what Taipei described as Chinese pressure.

Taken as a whole, this sequence does not indicate a clear turn toward peace or confrontation. Rather, it highlights a mixed strategy of incentive, coercion and political signaling. This is why the Xi-Cheng meeting counts less as a settlement than as a moment of diagnosis. This reveals that the central question is no longer whether Taiwan will simply be followed by Beijing or protected by Washington. The real question is whether Taiwan can transform its own democratic pluralism into a strategic agency under simultaneous external pressure.

Timing also matters. The meeting took place when Washington and Beijing were already express interest in another summit and while the Trump administration continued to describe Chinese policy on two registers: strategic competition in security matters, economic rebalancing in trade. This gives the Xi-Cheng meeting a pre-summit function without reducing it to Washington. For Beijing, this helps present cross-Strait manageability as part of a broader diplomatic environment. For the KMT, it is a way of asserting that dialogue can establish a floor of local stability before negotiations between great powers reduce Taiwan’s room for maneuver.

Democratic subjectivity as a security variable

In previous work on Taiwan subjectivityI argued that Taiwan should not be treated simply as an object of great power rivalry. This statement now requires a more precise definition. Taiwan’s subjectivity is not a romantic affirmation of unconstrained autonomy. It is the capacity of a politically exposed society to make its national legitimacy count in the calculations of others. In terms of security, this democratic subjectivity has three dimensions: institutional legitimacy, societal authorization and external credibility. Together, they help explain why any serious discussion of war and peace across the Strait must begin within, rather than above, Taiwan’s political process.

Institutional legitimacy comes first. Taiwan’s long-standing identity debate has not disappeared, but its operational limits are clearer than they were a generation ago. Long-term trend data from National Chengchi University continue to display a durable Taiwan-centered majority, with Chinese-only identification in the low single digits. No major party in Taiwan supports Beijing “One country, two systems” formulaand the electorate is still focused around some version of the status quo rather than immediate unification or a unilateral declaration of independence. This does not eliminate disagreements, but it establishes the ground on which any cross-Strait opening must now confront itself.

This is precisely why Cheng’s trip to Beijing is politically significant. For Beijing, the meeting demonstrated that communication with Taiwan remains possible even when official channels with Lai’s administration are frozen. It also reinforced a familiar assertion: that stability depends on accepting a common political basis. But for Cheng and the KMT, the bet is more complicated. In Taiwan, travel will be judged not just on ceremonial warmth, but also on whether it produces visible, non-humiliating gains: reduced tensions, restored tourism, tighter trade restrictions, or, at a minimum, a plausible narrative of reduced risk. A KMT leader in Beijing no longer occupies the same political space as he did fifteen years ago. Any party-to-party channel must now be translated into elections, media scrutiny, coalition politics, and public legitimacy if it is to become a sustainable policy.

Why national authorization is important

This translation problem will be particularly acute in 2026. local elections, scheduled for November 28will function in practice as a mid-term judgment on Lai’s administration and an early sorting mechanism for 2028. The cross-strait island’s choices are therefore directly drawn into the national electoral competition. The clearest example is the special defense package is at a standstill. Lai proposed additional spending of around NT$1.25 trillion to accelerate military modernization and resilience, but the opposition-controlled Parliament delayed the plan and rebuffed the proposal with more modest alternatives. This should not be reduced to a crude contrast between softness and toughness. The deeper problem is that, in a democracy under pressure, neither deterrence nor dialogue can be politically supported without internal authorization.

This is the second dimension of democratic subjectivity. Societal authorization is what allows a government to implement security policy in times of pain, uncertainty, and polarization. This is important in times of war, but it also matters in peace policies. A society can only absorb military reforms, budgetary compromises, economic losses or temporary rapprochement if these choices are perceived as legitimate and collectively bearable. This is where Taiwanese democracy matters as a strategic variable rather than an abstract value. A political regime lacking broad authorization can appear armed while remaining fragile. Conversely, a political regime capable of openly debating security while maintaining political consent possesses a form of resilience that is difficult to measure solely from stocks of ships, missiles or aircraft.

Seen in this light, the post-Beijing meeting incitements are as revealing as the meeting itself. The ten measures announced on April 12 are not random concessions. These were calibrated offerings aimed at audiences within Taiwan: tourism, culture, food and local business interests. The question is whether such measures can generate support without increasing distrust. The call from Taiwanese business leaders to exclude trade and tourism policy shows that there is still a demand for predictability and exchange. But the cancellation of Lai’s trip to Africa, and the coercive messaging surrounding it, simultaneously reinforces suspicions that economic openings and diplomatic pressure are being deployed as part of the same strategy. This is precisely why Taiwan’s internal authorization is important: external actors can create incentives, but they cannot determine how Taiwanese society will interpret them.

External credibility and material foundations

The third dimension is external credibility. Taiwan’s democratic subjectivity does not remain within the island. It also shapes how others assess Taiwan’s sustainability, prudence, and value as a partner. Yet this credibility is being tested in an increasingly overtly protected regional environment. The last ISEAS State of Southeast Asia Survey shows that respondents narrowly prefer China to the United States if forced to choose. This does not constitute evidence of total alignment with Beijing. It is clear that many regional players prioritize continuity, market access and low-risk flexibility.

For Taiwan, this means that external credibility must increasingly rely on functional values ​​as much as diplomatic sympathy. Semiconductors, industrial training, healthcare, digital infrastructure and resilient supply chains are not secondary issues; these are ways to make Taiwan more difficult to exclude without forcing partners into maximum political gestures. In this sense, democratic subjectivity is not folded in on itself. This is what allows Taiwan to project its reliability without claiming invulnerability.

Yet even this credibility has a material basis, and here the most neglected variable is energy. Taiwan imported more than 94% of its energy demand in 2024and official estimates in 2026 put natural gas stocks at just 10 to 11 days of use. In early April, Taipei said it had received insurance on liquefied natural gas supplies after the disturbances around the Strait of Hormuz. A Taiwan Insight analyst has previously noted that energy resilience is not only an economic issue but also a national security issue. This point deserves to be pursued further. A society that cannot maintain electricity supplies to households, industrial facilities and data centers will see all of its strategic choices narrow in practice. Dialogue without material resilience is fragile. Deterrence without material resilience is incomplete.

This is why the Xi-Cheng meeting should not be read as an autonomous political episode. Its historical significance lies in the clarity with which it lays out the structure of Taiwan’s predicament. Beijing can combine incentives and pressure. Washington can expand or reduce Taiwan’s strategic margin without always evolving its security policy and its economic policy according to the same timetable. Regional partners can cover themselves. But none of them can ignore the fact that Taiwan is now under external pressure through its own democratic institutions, public debate and material vulnerabilities. It’s not a slogan. This is a determining reality.

Cross-Strait peace policy cannot therefore be reduced to contacts with elites alone. It depends on the ability of a political force in Taiwan to integrate dialogue, deterrence, diversification and energy resilience into a policy line that society itself is prepared to support. If this line cannot be constructed, Taiwan will continue to be described by others through their preferred strategic narratives. If this is possible, then Taiwan’s subjectivity will cease to be a neglected abstraction and become what it has always struggled to become: a practical capacity to shape the conditions under which others must treat it.

Percy Yixuanchen Yu is the first visiting scholar at the School of International Studies at Nanjing University. His research focuses on Sino-American and Taiwanese relations, democratic legitimacy, and the strategic implications of Taiwanese subjectivity.

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