That was also ostensibly the message of Han’s visit to China in February, during which he promoted the sale of produce and seafood from Kaohsiung. While there he also met with local leaders in several southern Chinese cities, and held closed-door meetings with important members of China’s central government. Among the officials he met with were the directors of the Chinese government’s liaison offices in Hong Kong and Macau, former British and Portuguese colonies, respectively, that were handed over to Chinese administration in the late 1990s, and the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, a cabinet-level agency in Beijing responsible for setting policy and guidelines regarding Taiwan.

“Han Kuo-yu's meetings with Chinese officials signal his willingness to align himself closely” with China, Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., told me. “This raises questions about the extent to which Han, if elected president, would embrace [Beijing’s] positions.”

Han’s visit was covered in granular detail by Taiwan’s media, which are dominated by outlets that lean toward his party, the Kuomintang, whose interests are dovetailing with those of China’s Communist government. Stories breathlessly reported the millions of dollars in agreements signed by Chinese companies that pledged to purchase produce from Kaohsiung. By contrast, very little airtime was given to a concurrent visit by Taiwan’s actual president to the South Pacific, where she was trying to shore up diplomatic support for Taiwan. In another sign of China’s support for Han, a large number of comments from online supporters who helped propel him to victory in the Kaohsiung mayoral election were reported to have originated in China.

Han’s electoral fortunes have significant implications for Taiwan’s future, and for that of the region more generally. The Kuomintang ruled China until it was overthrown by Mao’s Communist forces in 1949, forcing the Kuomintang to re-base its Republic of China government in Taiwan. Across the Taiwan Strait, Mao established the People’s Republic of China. The official position of Han’s party is that Taiwan and China belong to the same country, but that the rulers on each side of the strait can retain their own interpretation of what that country is. That view has historically hewed closer to Beijing’s than to that of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party, which has traditionally favored formalizing Taiwan’s de facto independence.

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In Xi’s January speech, however, he made clear that Beijing’s version of the “one China” vision is different from that of the Kuomintang, and pointedly noted that a military invasion of Taiwan is an option on the table. Those comments swept away Beijing’s pragmatic silence on the issue, making clear that Xi and his government only allow one interpretation—their own. If Han runs for president, he would all but certainly take his China-friendly message across the island, and having an agreeable leader in Taipei would stand to benefit Beijing.