After reaching a crisis level earlier in this decade as President Chen Shui-bian sought to distance Taiwan from China, relations across the Taiwan Strait have calmed noticeably since the election of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president in 2008. This is a great relief to both Americans and mainland Chinese. The basic controversies regarding Taiwan, however, are not resolved. They are only in remission.

On the political front, Ma's cross-Strait policy has reversed the previous course by seeking to assure China that Taiwan is not drifting toward formal independence. Taipei and Beijing reportedly even coordinate policies through "party-to-party" channels. On the economic front, Ma's government has accelerated the liberalization of cross-Strait travel, trade and investment, which China has always favored but previous governments in Taipei feared would leave Taiwan vulnerable to Chinese political pressure.

Although most of the Taiwan public appears to approve of Ma's cross-Strait policy, a sizable and vocal segment of the population is highly critical. Leading the opposition to Ma is the Democratic Progressive Party. DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen succinctly calls Ma's cross-Strait policy "an erosion of Taiwan's sovereignty, security, democracy and economic leverage." The argument is that not only have the deepened economic ties with China produced less benefit for the people of Taiwan than promised, but this integration with the mainland is putting China in a position to exercise political control over Taiwan. DPP critics also argue that Ma's desire to avoid antagonizing China has led to an appeasement policy and that his government is rolling back civil liberties such as the rights to free speech and assembly. Roughly 40 percent of Taiwan's voters support the DPP and ideologically similar parties.

Beijing understands that not everyone is happy about the cross-Strait rapprochement and that although the DPP is currently in some disarray, it could return to power in the future. Ma himself has not been a popular president. After winning the presidential election with 58 percent of the vote, his public approval rating quickly sank thereafter and has remained low, dipping to below 20 percent this summer after Taiwan's public perceived the government response to deadly Typhoon Morakot as lethargic and callous. He carries the burden of attempting to demonstrate the success of his economic policies during a serious global recession that is roughly concurrent with his first term.

Deepening the cross-Strait economic relationship is the first, and by far the easiest, step in a rapprochement between Taiwan and China. The next steps are much harder, and unfortunately the relationship, like a bicycle, may require continued forward progress to remain upright and stable.

What Taipei wants next is for China to address Taiwan's demands for security, international space, and "national dignity." In China's view, each of these demands threatens to move Taiwan further away from what China wants next, which is clear movement toward unification.

In particular, Taiwan has maintained that it will not negotiate improved cross-Strait relations with China from a position of weakness. This means Taiwan will insist on building up its defense while trading and talking with China. As China's military expansion continues, Taiwan will continue to seek arms sales from the U.S., both for military purposes and as political reassurance that Taiwan's security is important to Americans. Beijing, however, does not accept the argument that a stronger Taiwan is more amenable to unification, and on the contrary maintains that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan hurt both cross-Strait relations and U.S.-China relations.

China's initial unambiguous satisfaction with the new cross-Strait relationship now sees a creeping suspicion by some Chinese observers that the increased economic and social ties are not necessarily moving Taiwan closer to political unification with China, which is the ultimate Chinese objective. There is a Chinese catch-22 at work here: Beijing is afraid to make concessions that a DPP government might take advantage of later to move Taiwan toward formal independence, but this Chinese reluctance to make concessions increases the likelihood that a pro-independence government will return to power.

Stability in the Taiwan Strait has been a matter of managing intractable issues until enough time passes for these issues to fade away. Management is holding up for now, but may soon get much more difficult.