For China, Taiwan Is the No. 1 Security Issue

Blanchard & Hung, Reuters
For China, whose President Xi Jinping is already taking an increasingly muscular approach to claims in the East and South China Sea, the question of Taiwan trumps any other of its territorial assertions in terms of sensitivity and importance. After eight years of calm in what had been one of Asia's powder kegs, the landslide election of an independence-leaning opposition leader, President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, has thrust Taiwan back into the spotlight as one of the region's most sensitive security issues.