TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The possibility of Donald Trump securing a second term as U.S. president combined with Lai Ching-te (賴清德) as Taiwan’s president represents a “nightmare scenario” for China, an analyst said on Tuesday (Jan. 16).

Rorry Daniels of the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis said she is still “cautiously optimistic” there will be no cross-strait crisis in 2024, per Nikkei. Daniels said that Lai’s commitment to maintaining the cross-strait status quo is an “important, reassuring, and stabilizing message.”

Daniels said that China’s “moderate response” to Lai’s election on Saturday is perhaps because it does not want Taiwan to become a focal point of the U.S.’s upcoming presidential election, though this attitude may not last. “Beijing sees both Lai and Trump as unpredictable and hostile to Beijing's use of power in the world," Daniels said.

Daniels noted comments by Mike Pompeo, who was U.S. secretary of state during the Trump administration and visited Taiwan in 2022. She noted that Pompeo urged Washington to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation, and he may receive a high-level position in a future Trump administration.

Beijing has repeatedly stressed that Taiwan's independence is a "red line" for China. Meanwhile, surveys show Taiwanese people do not want de jure independence, and favor the status quo.

Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses on Tuesday (Jan. 16), bringing him a step closer to becoming the Republican Party’s nominee for U.S. president.

An ABC News/ Ipsos poll published before the primary showed that 70% of Republican Party supporters would be satisfied with Trump as a presidential nominee. Meanwhile, the same poll showed incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval ratings drop to a 15-year record low, while only 57% of Democratic Party supporters said they would be satisfied with Biden as a presidential nominee.