Taiwan's incoming president faces angry China, fractured parliament

TAIPEI — Lai Ching-te takes office as Taiwan's president on May 20, facing a China that calls him a "dangerous separatist" and has ramped up military drills, as well as a fractured parliament at home where no party has a majority.

Lai, vice-president for the past four years, succeeds President Tsai Ing-wen at a time Beijing has been increasing military and political pressure to assert sovereignty — a claim he and Tsai reject — over democratically governed Taiwan.

In the run-up to Lai's election victory in January, Beijing repeatedly denounced him as a supporter of Taiwan's formal independence, framing the vote as a choice between war and peace.

China says any move by Taiwan to declare formal independence would be grounds to attack the island. The government in Taipei says Taiwan is already an independent country, the Republic of China, and that it does not plan to change that. The Republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists.

Lai, 64, widely known by his English name William, has offered talks with China many times, including this week, which Beijing has rebuffed. He says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Beijing will be closely watching the inaugural speech by Lai, a doctor by training and son of a coal miner, at the Japanese-colonial era presidential office in central Taipei.

Puma Shen, a lawmaker for Lai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who sits on parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee, says Lai wants to show Taiwan is not a "troublemaker" and is looking for peace.

"But no matter what he says during the inauguration, China will always disagree," Shen said.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office, asked on May 15 about Lai's speech and how China