China heaps pressure on Taiwan ahead of a big election

THERE IS noDPPKMTDPPKMTECFA doubt which party the Chinese government favours in Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections on January 13th. Officials in Beijing see the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (), which takes a defiant stance towards China, as a gang of separatists standing in the way of Taiwan’s unification with the mainland. The Kuomintang () party, on the other hand, is much more friendly towards China. The island faces a choice between “prosperity and recession” and between “peace and war”, say Chinese officials.The people of Taiwan see things differently. They want neither recession nor war, but according to opinion polls, a plurality favours Lai Ching-te, the ’s candidate, to be their next president (the rest of the vote is split between Hou Yu-ih of the and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party). China is not happy. On January 1st it reimposed tariffs on 12 petrochemical products that had been covered under a cross-strait trade deal, the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement ().