Taiwan is politically complicated. Taiwan has to play a balancing act where China believes that will Taiwan will willingly rejoin the mainland, while still acting as ‘the true China’. If mainland China believes that it will eventually be resolved diplomatically, they won’t resort to violence. This is complicated with the election of the anti-Chinese president in Taiwan who will push harder against China, upsetting that balance. My guess is that his statements are done to ease Chinese concerns, and/or signal to Taiwan to not antagonize the Chinese.