SINGAPORE: Five days before Mr William Lai Ching- te’s opening as Taiwan’s president, its military government detected 45 Taiwanese military aircraft around Taiwan, the highest individual- day number this year. On Wednesday, twenty-six of the flights flew over the middle range of the Taiwan Strait, which had once been a formal boundary between the two countries.  ,
When Taiwan’s China-friendly opposition party Kuomintang ( KMT ) lawmakers made a friendly appearance on the Chinese mainland last month, China announced it would restart travel for Fujian residents to Taiwan’s Matsu islands and later permit group tours to other areas of the territory.  ,
China added that Taiwan’s importation of fruit and other agricultural and fishing products may be approved.
According to observers, this” vegetable and stick” strategy will probably continue and grow as China’s preferred method of dealing with Taiwan as Mr. Lai assumes Ms Tsai Ing-wen’s role becomes more crucial in Beijing’s calculations as a tussle for impact with the West and economic challenges at home.
Mr Lai won a historic third successive presidential term for the independence- leaning Democratic Progressive Party ( DPP ) in January’s elections, beating the KMT’s Mr Hou Yu- ih and Mr Ko Wen- je of the Taiwan People’s Party ( TPP ).
Taiwan will benefit from Beijing’s clear message to Mr. Lai, according to observers: If it cooperates to forge deeper cross-strait connectivity, it could face retaliation if it attempts to distance itself from China, which views the self-governing area as a part of its country that needs to be reunited with the mainland.
Analysts predict that Taiwan will progressively turn to other nations for economic and diplomatic gain as Mr. Lai attempts to maintain the cross-strait status quo of no declaring freedom.
However, there are limitations on what Taipei you do, and it might be trying to avoid being stonewalled by the lack of a parliamentary majority. There are also some very specific limitations on how far Ms. Lai you advance or enhance Ms. Tsai’s New Southbound Policy, which promotes closer financial and person-to-people ties with South and Southeast Asian nations as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Dr. Hoo Tiang Boon, interact professor at the School of Social Sciences at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU), told CNA that” China is essentially the main financial backbone for all the countries in the region.”
” They have to be very aware of and sensitive to Chinese considerations, and ( Southeast Asian nations ) will be very cautious to be seen as forging closer links with Taiwan.”
“CARROT AND STICK” APPROACH
Depending on the person and bash that is in charge of Taiwan, cross-strait relations have ebbed and flowed.  ,
Ties were strained from 2000 to 2008 when the DPP’s Chen Shui- bian was senator. They significantly improved under the leadership of Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, including a monument meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, before deteriorating once more when Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, took over in 2016.
Problems surfaced during her annual speech, which Beijing criticised as an “incomplete check solution” for never explicitly recognising the 1992 discussion.