A leading US academic on Taiwan said Beijing understands that it has an interest in keeping President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in power and for that reason is “not currently pushing its larger agenda.”

Richard Bush, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Northeast Asian Policy, told a Washington conference that how China deals with the Taiwan issue would be a “litmus test” on what kind of great power it would eventually be.