Notes from Central Taiwan: Do exchanges reduce tension with China? Politicians like former president Ma Ying-jeou believe that exchanges across the Taiwan strait are a panacea for peace. The group from China is almost certainly apart of Beijing’s “united front” operation against Taiwan. Taiwan’s universities once hosted thousands of PRC students as well. People-to-people exchanges cannot reduce tensions because tensions are caused by the desire of CCP elites to kill Taiwanese (and their own people) to annex Taiwan.