Professor Yan Anlin is one of mainland China’s most highly regarded Taiwan studies experts. A former close aide to Wang Daohan, the mainland representative at the historic talks with Taiwan in 1993, Yan is frequently consulted by Beijing on cross-strait policymaking and sits in on official meetings.
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He currently serves as president of the Shanghai Association of Taiwan Studies as well as the Shanghai Institute for International Strategic Studies. He is also a former vice-president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies think tank. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.
What is your assessment of the current state of cross-strait relations and the historical progress towards reunification?
In my view, we are still in the early stages of building momentum towards complete reunification, which can be seen as a preparatory phase.
It is likely to take another five to 10 years to achieve full reunification, as we are still in a phase of quantitative change, rather than having reached a qualitative shift.
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However, we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that – if [Taiwanese leader] William Lai Ching-te and other forces advocating Taiwan independence push matters to the extreme – peaceful reunification becomes no longer feasible, which is when the situation might escalate rapidly.
When I say it will take five to 10 years, I’m referring to peaceful reunification. I believe it would be very difficult to achieve sooner than that.