This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. With elections in Taiwan now in the books and the country's new president seeking closer ties to China, where do the US and China stand?

Justin Logan, Associate Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Kido Institute, provides

some analysis.

In general, the people in the United States States and particularly in foggy bottom in China watching circles are relieved at the real election result

Maying Joe is thought to be more conciliatory to China and less likely to rabble rouse and cause problems in the U.S. China- Taiwan relationship, so that's thought to be positive, at least in the short

term. That provision, at least in the short term, is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The long-term reality is unchanged.

People on Taiwan don't look particularly favorably on China and have very, very little desire to be part of China.

So the long-term reality is unchanged.

That said, there's a lot of opportunity opportunity at least in the short term for confidence

building measures for China and Taiwan to come together and one of the things that my my colleague Ted Carpenter has been

talking about a lot has been the ability for the Chinese side at least to, for example, stop adding missiles that are targeted at Taiwan,

potentially, and this is my view, in exchange for some conciliatory measures that are done by the Taiwanese side.

So this idea of an exchange for conciliation on the Taiwanese side could really break ground in the sense that perhaps the Taiwanese side could recognize once again the 1992

consensus which was in agreement to sort of agree to disagree on this question of one China is

possible for the first time and a long time but again the long-term reality remains unchanged, so there's the ability, or the long-term

reality remains unchanged.

So there is, while there is hope in the short term, the long term remains really dicey.

It would seem that there is a greater opportunity here for the US to back away from its

previous commitments regarding Taiwan with less impact for doing so is that the

case? Well it's always been a long shot and for the United States to back away in a meaningful, decisive fashion. But at the same time, these short-term developments are hopeful and do provide

a window for a meaningful change in U.S. policy.

That should be taken up.

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