No one can stop China’s “reunification” with Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s speech on Dec 31, 2024, laying down a clear warning to what Beijing regards as pro-independence forces within and outside of the island of 23 million people.
In the past year, Beijing has stepped up military pressure near Taiwan, sending warships and planes almost daily into the waters and airspace around the island in what Taiwanese officials view as a creeping effort to “normalise” China’s military presence.
China regards democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory. But Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s claims and says only its people can decide their future and Beijing ought to respect the choice of the Taiwanese people.
“The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family. No one can sever our family bonds, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification,” Mr Xi said, in a speech televised on China’s state broadcaster CCTV.
In his New Year’s speech in 2023, Mr Xi said China’s “reunification” with Taiwan is inevitable, and that people on both sides “should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.
Tensions have remained high throughout the year in the sensitive Taiwan Strait, especially after Mr Lai Ching-te, deemed a “separatist” by Beijing, became the island’s latest president in May.
Earlier in December, China staged a large massing of naval forces around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas after Mr Lai stopped over in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam on a Pacific trip criticised by Beijing.
Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-chinas-reunification-with-taiwan
