In the heightened tensions surrounding Taiwan, China’s state and party leader Xi Jinping has called for “reunification”. This will and must be achieved, Xi said shortly after a record number of around 150 Chinese fighter jets entered Taiwan’s air defense zone. Uniting by “peaceful means” would best serve the interests of the entire Chinese nation, the president said at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People on Saturday.
“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should stand on the right side of history and unite to achieve the total reunification and renewal of the Chinese nation,” Xinhua news agency quoted the president as saying. With a view to the independence of today’s democratic Taiwan, Xi Jinping said: “Those who forget their legacy, betray their homeland and try to divide the country will come to a bad end.”
The occasion for Xi’s remarks was the 110th anniversary of the revolution of 1911, to which both today’s Communist People’s Republic and the Republic of China, founded at that time and still exist in Taiwan, refer. Taiwan firmly denied the demands. The democratic island republic is a “sovereign and independent country and not part of the People’s Republic of China,” said President Tsai Ing-wen’s spokesman in Taipei. “The future of the country rests in the hands of the Taiwanese people.” During the revolution of 1911 a “democratic republic, not an authoritarian dictatorship” had been established and this democracy had been “truly realized” in Taiwan.
Fear of Beijing’s military build-up
Without naming the US, which is committed to Taiwan’s defense capability and supplies weapons, Xi also warned against foreign interference: “The Taiwan issue is a purely internal matter for China.” His message to the 23 million Taiwanese comes against the backdrop of a worsening conflict in which China has been increasing military pressure for weeks.
At the same time will reportedthat American special forces and marines are secretly training Taiwanese troops in the island nation off the coast of China. The military presence on the island claimed by China shows how serious the US is about Beijing’s military build-up. In order to counteract the aggressive territorial claims, other states are also sending warships into the region for exercises, for example.
In the 1911 revolution, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China was founded under Sun Yat-sen. In the later civil war, however, the communists prevailed and the national Chinese Kuomintang party fled with the government to Taiwan. The island regards itself today as independent, continues to call itself the Republic of China and celebrates the anniversary of the revolution on Sunday with its national holiday. The communist leadership in Beijing, on the other hand, sees Taiwan only as an “inseparable part” of the People’s Republic, which was founded in 1949, and threatens a violent conquest for “reunification”.