How China’s public views Taiwan’s elections

As China’s rulers tell it, the Communist Party must control Taiwan to make the whole country safe and strong. “Unification brings strength while division leads to chaos,” says the State Council, China’s cabinet. “This is a law of history.”

Actually, the party’s obsession with Taiwan is a political choice. After 1991 China signed a series of treaties fixing its borders with the Soviet Union and Russia, in effect ceding over a million square kilometres of Chinese territory grabbed by Russia in the 19th century. No law of history forbade that decision to forget past wrongs.