Taiwanese sailors stand in front of the sail of a U.S.-made Guppy-class submarine in southern Taiwan, on Jan. 18, 2017. Taiwan conducted two days of military drills simulating an attack by China as the government sought to reassure the public in the face of deteriorating relations with Beijing.
One of the biggest obstacles to China's campaign for "national rejuvenation," President Xi Jinping's plan to guide the country to world prominence, lies across 180 kilometers (112 miles) of water on the island of Taiwan . The mainland's drive to return China to a position of global strength — which it hopes to complete by 2049 — includes reunification with Taiwan. The remnants of the Nationalist Party that fled to the island during the civil war waged in China in the 1940s remain there, creating a situation that the conflict's Communist victors cannot accept. While successive governments in Beijing have tried without success to reclaim or to reintegrate the island, they did prevent it from pulling away. Their efforts to draw Taiwan closer have yielded mixed results, but over the past few decades, Taiwanese nationalism has continued to rise.
