The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan’s current ruling party, came to power after Lai Ching-te won the January 2024 election and delivered his inaugural address on 20 May 2024. Two years later, it is difficult to avoid a sobering conclusion: cross-strait relations are now more fragile, more hostile, and more ideologically entrenched than they were at the start of his term in office.
Strategic rivalry between China and the United States has intensified across multiple fronts, and Taiwan inevitably sits at the centre of this contest. Yet leadership choices, political rhetoric, and signalling also matter. And over the past two years, the Lai administration has often appeared more interested in sharpening Taiwan’s distinct political identity and foreclosing any possible political reconciliation than in preserving the delicate ambiguity that long helped maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait.
In his inaugural speech, Lai spoke of democracy, Taiwan’s own historical path away from China, and the need for Beijing to respect Taiwan’s choices. His repeatedly emphasised formulation, that the “Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other,” is edging closer towards a “two-state” theory.
Under Lai, the political messaging has become sharper, more identity-centric, less restrained, and more hostile towards China than ever. The DPP government’s policies, on education, immigration, state-owned enterprises, language and culture, are all sharpening an identity divide premised on ideological incompatibility between China’s Mainland and Taiwan. Even some international observers sympathetic to Taiwan have noted that the language and rhetoric of Lai or his top officials (such as Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh) have strayed from the more careful balancing act pursued even by their DPP predecessors.
Supporters of DPP argue that Lai was merely expressing political reality as understood by many in Taiwan. But from Beijing’s perspective, Lai’s rhetoric and actual policies represent a gradual but unmistakable erosion of the political understandings that have underpinned cross-strait stability for decades.
This matters because cross-strait stability has never depended on mutual trust or deterrence alone. It has also depended on strategic restraint, calibrated ambiguity, and the avoidance of symbolic escalation.
Trump’s visit to China
Recent developments in US-China relations have also reinforced the sense that geopolitical realities may be shifting in ways that Taiwan’s current leadership cannot afford to ignore.
During President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Beijing, much attention focused not only on trade, technology, strategic competition, and the crisis in Iran, but also on Taiwan itself. While Trump did not explicitly state the U.S. “opposition to Taiwan independence,” he struck a notably restrained tone on the Taiwan question, repeatedly emphasising the need for stability and caution. He openly questioned the wisdom of being drawn into a military conflict with China over Taiwan, remarking that the United States should not be expected to “travel 9,500 miles to fight a war” and warning against “somebody [going] independent.”
Trump also suggested that both Beijing and Taipei should “cool down”, while avoiding any firm commitment to military intervention on Taiwan’s behalf. Such remarks have inevitably fuelled anxieties in Taiwan, particularly among those who assume that American strategic backing is unconditional or unlimited.
Also revealing was Trump’s broader framing of the issue. Following meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he emphasised that Xi did not want war over Taiwan, appearing to signal that Washington’s overriding priority is preventing a catastrophic US–China confrontation rather than encouraging sharper cross-strait tensions. Seen in this light, Washington may also be growing more receptive to Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which has advocated for cross-strait stability and whose chairwoman Cheng Li-wun recently visited China in a notably cordial exchange.
For observers in Southeast Asia, this matters greatly. It suggests that even within Washington, there remains considerable reluctance to become directly entangled in a military conflict over Taiwan. In other words, while the United States may continue supporting Taiwan politically and militarily, there are also clear limits to how far any American administration may ultimately be willing to go.
This reality should encourage greater prudence in Taipei rather than greater ideological confidence. If major powers themselves are signalling caution, then political leaders on both sides of the Strait should be especially careful not to escalate tensions through rhetoric or symbolic provocation.
Malaysia’s “One-China” policy
Malaysia has long maintained a consistent and disciplined One-China policy. Kuala Lumpur officially recognises the People’s Republic of China government as the sole legal government of China, and that Taiwan is part of China, while simultaneously maintaining robust economic and people-to-people ties with Taiwan. This balanced approach has served Malaysia well for decades. It reflects geopolitical realism and pragmatism.
As a trading nation situated at the heart of Southeast Asia, Malaysia has little interest in becoming entangled in great-power rivalry or cross-strait confrontation. Stability in the Taiwan Strait is not an abstract issue for Malaysia or any of the ASEAN economies. It directly affects regional trade flows, semiconductor supply chains, investment confidence, maritime security, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ASEAN citizens living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
From this vantage point, the central concern is not Taiwan’s democracy per se, nor the preferences of Taiwan’s electorate. Rather, it is whether political actors on all sides are acting in ways that reduce or increase the risk of miscalculation.
Unfortunately, the broader political trajectory under Lai increasingly appears to prioritise identity consolidation over strategic reassurance. One sees this not only in official rhetoric, but also in the narrowing political space within Taiwan itself. Voices advocating deeper cross-strait engagement are often portrayed domestically as insufficiently loyal or out of touch with Taiwan’s evolving identity. Yet durable peace cannot emerge from ideological absolutism and uncompromising pursuit of strategic clarity.
At the same time, Beijing must also recognise that military pressure alone is unlikely to win hearts and minds in Taiwan. Large-scale exercises and coercive signalling may deter formal independence, but they also reinforce fear and alienation among ordinary Taiwanese citizens. The more pressure intensifies, the easier it becomes for pro-independence narratives to gain political traction.
This is why the current trajectory is so dangerous: both sides increasingly validate each other’s worst assumptions.
For Malaysia and much of ASEAN, the preferred outcome remains unchanged: peace, dialogue, restraint, and the preservation of regional equilibrium. Few in Southeast Asia support formal Taiwan independence. In fact, several ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, have recently become more explicit in opposing Taiwan independence in their joint statements with China. This reflects a growing recognition across the region of the geopolitical realities surrounding the issue and the convergence with Beijing on the status of Taiwan. Equally, few desire military conflict or coercive reunification. Most simply hope that all parties avoid actions that make peaceful coexistence impossible.
Seen from this perspective, the concern of Lai’s administration is that it has not sufficiently appreciated the geopolitical limits within which Taiwan operates. Taiwan occupies an extraordinarily sensitive strategic position. Its leaders therefore carry an unusually heavy responsibility to manage language carefully, avoid symbolic provocations, and preserve room for dialogue even amid profound disagreements.
Two years after his inaugural address, it is difficult to say that cross-strait relations are more stable, more predictable, or less dangerous. If anything, the opposite is true.
History may ultimately judge that the greatest failure of this period was not a dramatic crisis, but the slow erosion of the political restraint that once kept crisis at bay.
And for countries like Malaysia, which continue to uphold the One-China policy while valuing regional stability above ideological confrontation, that erosion should concern us all.
Dr. Ngeow Chow Bing is Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya
