“（中国）大陆虽强，但台湾可以打太极拳，闪来闪去，双脚不动，一点都没有退让”。

In Hong Kong today the tycoons and the CCP are on the same side, vehemently opposing universal suffrage. The standpoint of the capitalists was revealed in a 2006 Hong Kong government report that warned, “if universal suffrage was implemented or functional constituencies abolished hastily, Hong Kong might become a welfare state”! The Beijing regime and Hong Kong’s tycoons also fear the democratic virus will spread to the mainland.

A similar fear explains why Hu has modified his policy towards Taiwan, showing less haste than his predecessors over reunification. Nowadays Beijing’s message is stronger economic ties and a ‘common market’.

But if Hong Kong’s pro-democracy struggle is a destabilising factor for Beijing, it pales by comparison to developments in Taiwan. Taiwan’s reincorporation into the Chinese state under current conditions would introduce a new destabilising force into the mainland’s body politic: a mass-based and extremely vocal Taiwan populist movement, with its own media and huge financial resources.

So from Beijing’s standpoint, assuming its minimum conditions are met – i.e. no declaration of independence – the Taiwanese are best left to themselves!

The Guomindang's increasing popularity with the urban middle class and some students is undeniable. A big layer of China’s middle classes look enviously upon Taiwan’s success as a ’knowledge-based economy’, and its democratizing under the two Jiangs convinces them the GMD would make for a more efficient and ’democratic’ – but still nationalistic – government.

The CCP can buy in Taiwan gradually,though. Taiwan men are so welcome by the CCP(monopolizing so much national wealth that so generous to Taiwan men) that Taiwan men are intoxicated.For example,in Xiamen,there are about 50000 concubines of Taiwan men.