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From left, Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te, Chinese President Xi Jinping and KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih. Lai will need Hou's cooperation if Taiwan is to keep China at bay. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Kento Awashima, Yusuke Hinata, and Reuters)

Analysis: In Taiwan, distrust of Xi Jinping's China is real

The sense of crisis is also shared by members of Beijing-friendly opposition parties

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

On the eve of Taiwan's presidential election, with Taipei residents hotly debating who to vote for, one particularly interesting argument was overheard between an old man and a young woman. Among the most heard words in their conversation were, surprisingly enough, Xi Jinping, the name of China's powerful leader.

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