Minxin Pei is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a nonresident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The conspicuous omission of the word "peaceful" from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's speech to the National People's Congress in late May, when referring to Beijing's resolve to reunify with Taiwan, has caused much consternation among those tracking cross-strait relations. Important speeches are carefully vetted policy pronouncements. Not having "peaceful" in front of "reunification" could not possibly have been a typo.
