BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be recalibrating his hardline approach to Taiwan in the year before the island holds a presidential election.

This is because his government’s preferred negotiating partner, the Kuomintang party, has a shot at winning the vote.

Kuomintang vice-chairman Andrew Hsia is expected to visit China on Wednesday. He is due to visit several Chinese cities over nine days.

The trip will include a stop in the capital, Beijing, where he is likely to meet Mr Song Tao, a former top Communist Party diplomat who now oversees affairs across the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing has signalled that it intends to resume imports from more than 60 Taiwanese food companies that were among exporters it barred in 2022.

That move pulls back on an unofficial punishment China has used to show displeasure with President Tsai Ing-wen for activities such as fostering ties with the United States. 

“Now as Taiwan’s presidential campaign is about to start, it’s a good time for Beijing to lessen its sanctions against Taiwan because if it doesn’t, sanctions are going to be a major liability for Beijing-friendly politicians in Taiwan,” said Mr Wen-ti Sung, a specialist on Taiwanese politics and cross-strait relations at Australian National University. “That’s what we’re seeing now.”

While it is too early to say what the extent of the shift will be, the strategy coincides with China adopting a more conciliatory tone in its dealings with the US and its allies since Mr Xi and President Joe Biden met in Indonesia last November.

The fence-mending is aimed at addressing a collapse in public support across the developed world and refocusing on an economy battered by three years of strict zero-Covid rules.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to visit Beijing this week, in the first such trip by a top US diplomat in more than four years.

He postponed those plans owing to a Chinese balloon that the US says was spying on the country.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met his Australian counterpart Don Farrell on Monday.

When asked whether China is adjusting its approach to the island, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhu Fenglian said on Wednesday at a regular press briefing in Beijing that her nation’s “policy on Taiwan is consistent and clear and won’t change based on Taiwan’s political situation”.

In a further sign of China’s apparently softer tone on Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) command in the east – the military unit that would spearhead an invasion – released a video at the weekend to mark a Chinese holiday with the people of Taiwan.

It spoke warmly about the PLA protecting the well-being of the Chinese people over the long term and the good life of “the family” on both sides of the strait.

Yet, it mixed images of fireworks and relatives hugging with fighter jets and short-range ballistic missiles.

It was a reminder of the weapons China fired over the island in response to then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last August.

A possible visit by Mrs Pelosi’s Republican successor, Mr Kevin McCarthy, may show in the coming months how much China has calibrated its approach. 

The presidential election Taiwan has scheduled for January 2024 is one reason for Beijing to adjust its game plan towards securing control over the island.

Ms Tsai is unable to run again because of term limits, opening up the field to new candidates such as Vice-President William Lai, a top challenger to be the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate.  

Mr Lai once described himself as a “political worker for Taiwanese independence”.

That type of rhetoric angers Beijing, whose officials often lash out at the DPP for its “collusion” with the US, Taiwan’s main military supporter.

New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih and Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou are the KMT’s current front runners, according to a poll in January by TVBS, a major Taiwanese broadcaster.

The KMT’s strong showing in local elections last November opened the door to possibly claiming its first presidential election victory in a decade.

Its efforts to win over voters would be aided by China overhauling its image in Taiwan.

More than 78 per cent of the public felt China held an unfriendly attitude towards Taiwan’s government, according to a survey that the Mainland Affairs Council in Taipei released in October.

Some 61 per cent of respondents said Beijing was unfriendly to the Taiwanese people. 

Despite the KMT having fought and lost to Mao Zedong’s communists in a civil war in the first half of the 20th century, the party is Beijing’s preferred negotiating partner in Taiwan.

This is because Beijing and the KMT share the notion that the island is a part of China.

That preference was on display last August, when Mr Hsia visited China amid lingering tensions over Mrs Pelosi’s visit.

Mr Hsia shrugged off criticism of the trip from Ms Tsai and some in the KMT to lead a delegation that focused on business-related issues.

Under Ms Tsai’s KMT predecessor, former president Ma Ying-jeou, Taipei and Beijing eased decades-old restrictions on tourism and investment.

“Engaging in dialogue with the KMT allows Beijing to say that cross-strait dialogue is taking place even as it eschews dialogue with the Tsai administration,” said Ms Amanda Hsiao, senior analyst at International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based policy research organisation. 

“It also allows the KMT to present itself to Taiwanese voters as the party capable of delivering dialogue – and therefore a more stable relationship – with Beijing, which appeals to segments of the Taiwanese population.” BLOOMBERG