Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed his long-standing promise to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s rule in a speech marking the 130th birthday of late communist leader Mao Zedong.
“The complete reunification of our motherland is a general trend, a just cause and the common aspiration of the people,” the 70-year-old proclaimed Tuesday, according to the South China Morning Post. “Our homeland must be reunified, and it will surely be reunified.”
Taiwan has operated as a self-governing island since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, with its own government, currency and military.
Beijing has long maintained that Taiwan is part of China and Xi has kept military force on the table to achieve reunification, although he reportedly told President Biden last month that his preference is to annex the island peacefully.
Xi Jinping expressed his opposition to any international effort to separate China from Taiwan. ZUMAPRESS.com
For decades, the United States has observed the so-called “One China” policy, which recognizes Beijing’s claim to the island but does not recognize it.
Meanwhile, officials in Washington have kept the specter of military intervention on the table if China tries to invade.
Biden has repeatedly suggested that the United States would take military action if China invades Taiwan, only to have the White House repeatedly backtrack on some of those suggestions.
Taiwan is scheduled to hold its presidential elections next month. Brennan O’Connor/ZUMA / SplashNews.com
“Yes, if indeed there was an unprecedented attack,” Biden told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in September 2022 when asked if the United States would defend Taiwan.
During Tuesday’s speech in Beijing, Xi also praised Mao as a “spiritual treasure.”
Ironically, Mao had Xi’s father purged from the Chinese Communist Party, while the future leader was sent to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s. Xi was eventually accepted back into the CCP fold in the 10th time he requested it, in the mid-1970s.
China has been strengthening its military at a fervent pace. AFP/Getty Images
Taiwan is about to hold a presidential election in January and Western officials have expressed fears that the CCP could meddle in the vote.
Incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has endorsed Taiwanese nationalism and its close ties to the United States, is term-limited and therefore cannot compete for re-election as president.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn