For years, China’s friends in the U.S. have argued that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened: Taiwan would unify with China under the formula of “one country, two systems.” Given the mainland’s advantages economically, demographically and militarily, it seemed improbable to analysts that smaller and trade-dependent Taiwan could survive the gravitational pull of the PRC. Ethnically and linguistically, they were one people. Moreover, Party leaders in the PRC were offering to the people of Taiwan the “best of both worlds”: confederation with the ancestral home and a rising great power as well as the apparent autonomy to govern themselves under the broad umbrella of one country, two systems.

And, indeed, over the past few years, with the accession of KMT party head Ma Ying-jeou to the presidency of Taiwan in 2008, there appeared to be some momentum in this direction. Taipei and Beijing had signed agreements to open up trade and tourism between the mainland and the island and avoided open confrontations diplomatically.