BEIJING, Feb 10 (Reuters) – China will offer firm support for “patriotic pro-reunification forces” in Taiwan and strike hard against “separatists”, the top Chinese official in charge of policy towards the democratically-governed island said in comments published on Tuesday.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.
Addressing this year’s annual “Taiwan Work Conference”, the ruling communist party’s fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the “great cause of national reunification”, the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.
It is necessary to “firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”, Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.
While the report made no mention of the use of force, China has never renounced using military means to bring Taiwan under its control, the Chinese defence ministry struck a stronger note commenting on Taiwanese military deployments.
“If the ‘Taiwan independence’ armed forces dare to provoke a conflict, they will inevitably be wiped out,” ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin said on Tuesday in Beijing.
‘ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS’
China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.
Taiwan’s government says Beijing’s rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years prison the previous day.
“Jimmy Lai’s sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is – a tool of political persecution under China’s ‘one country, two systems’ that tramples human rights & freedom of press,” Lai wrote on X.
There was no immediate response to Wang Huning’s comments from Taiwan’s government, which says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries including the U.S. against meddling in Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.
In a call with U.S. President Donald Trump last week, China’s President Xi Jinping said the Taiwan issue is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.
China refuses to speak to Taiwan’s president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a “separatist” who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.
Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.
Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics like tourism and AI.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Sonali Paul and Michael Perry)
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