Taiwan reunification is inevitable: China's Xi
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In his New Year address, Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses the reunification of Taiwan with the Chinese motherland.
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People have their dinner at a restaurant as a screen broadcasts China's President Xi Jinping while delivering his New Year's speech in Beijing on December 31, 2023. (Photo by Pedro Pardo / AFP)
In his New Year's address on Sunday, Chinese President Xi Jinping adamantly declared the reunification of Taiwan inevitable.
"Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Xi said with less than two weeks to go till the Taiwanese elections, consistent with previous sentiments of a one family people divided by a strait.
China has been particularly monitoring presidential candidate Lai Ching-te of the Taiwanese Democratic Party (DPP), with claims of his separatist ideology.
Lai, in a televised debate session discussing the upcoming presidential elections, appeared to have uncovered his intentions of maintaining Taiwan's independence, and to be a "destroyer of peace across the Taiwan Strait," as per Chinese spokesperson Chen Binhua.
Chen also accused the DPP, led by Ching-te, of obstructing efforts for reunification and "damaging the interests of the Taiwanese people," adding that the chairman "cannot escape his responsibility for this."
The DPP on the other hand, believes the Taiwanese people are the only ones who can decide the fate of the land.
Read more: In possible Taiwan war, US munitions can't sustain a week: Congressman
China will ultimately reunify with Taiwan
Chinese President Xi Jinping told US President Joe Biden at their November summit in San Francisco that China will ultimately reunify with Taiwan, albeit on an undetermined timeline.
Last month, in their first meeting in a year, Xi and Biden shook hands and promised to keep their nations out of conflict.
Relations between the two countries have significantly deteriorated in the past years due to Washington's increasingly hostile policies against Beijing and its encroaching on its geopolitical sphere, particularly regarding Taiwan.
Moreover, at the beginning of this month, the Taiwan Affairs in the Chinese State Council spokesperson, Zhu Fenglian, stated that the United States should not intervene in the Taiwanese elections, as they are solely an internal Chinese affair.
In a news conference, Zhu said, "Taiwan's election is China's internal affair, and interference by outside forces is unacceptable," adding that Biden has opposed "Taiwan's independence" in a clear stance, as the US made serious political commitments to Beijing on the issue of Taiwan during the US-China top-level summit in San Francisco in November.
"The US must fulfill its promises, stop sending false signals to pro-independence forces in Taiwan, and stop interfering in Taiwan's elections," Zhu stressed.
It is worth noting that the US continues to send a small number of military trainers to Taiwan and militarize the island through arms sales.
