Ma Ying-jeou, president of Taiwan since May 2008, was elected on a mandate of reducing tension across the Taiwan Strait. Few can deny he has made progress.

His rapprochement policy has produced a thaw in relations that had become fraught – even dangerous – under his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, who had pursued a strongly independent line that Beijing denounced as “splittist”.

The question for Taiwan’s electorate, which will next year decide whether it wants four more years of Mr Ma, is whether such reconciliation has come at too high a price. The opposition certainly argues that it has. It says that by pursuing closer economic integration through an economic co- operation framework agreement signed last year, Mr Ma’s ruling Kuomintang party is falling into a trap of Beijing’s making.