Beijing’s policy advisers map out how post-reunification Taiwan could be governed

In 2019, President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to publicly call for the exploration of detailed proposals for governing Taiwan after reunification.Seven years later, the first proposals from a handful of the mainland’s leading research institutes have either been finalised or are nearing completion, the South China Morning Post has learned.Rather than setting out a single fixed model, scholars involved in those studies told the SCMP there should be different scenarios based on how reunification was achieved, with peaceful reunification granting Taiwan the largest scope of autonomy under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for post-reunification governance.“The earlier Taiwan engages in talks with the mainland, the more bargaining power it would have, and therefore the greater the space it would have to shape the terms. That is almost inevitable,” said Chen Xiancai, a Taiwan affairs professor at Xiamen University.