Taiwan President Unnerved by Xi Jinping’s Call To Peacefully Reunite the Island and Mainland

Oct. 10, 2021 (EIRNS)—Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen replied to Xi Jinping’s call for the peaceful reunification of the island with the mainland, in his Oct. 9 speech on the 110th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, by declaring that Taiwan must “resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty,” and stressed that “the future of the R.O.C. (Taiwan) must be decided in accordance with the will of the Taiwanese people.”

“Let us here renew with one another our enduring commitment to a free and democratic constitutional system, our commitment that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other,” she said in a speech today, the South China Morning Post reported.

Tsai further warned that Taiwan is facing the “most complex situation” in the past 72 years, since the end of the Chinese civil war, stating that Taiwan wants “an easing of cross-strait relations” and will not “act rashly,” but stressed “there should be absolutely no illusions that the Taiwanese people will bow to pressure.... We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us.”

Tsai premised her argument on the big lie that it is the P.R.C. that has caused the current escalation of tensions, and that “maintaining the status quo is our position, and we will do our utmost to prevent the status quo from being unilaterally altered.” But it is in fact Tsai and her DPP, since coming into power in May 2016, who have been goaded and driven forward by the U.K. and the U.S. to radically change the previous status quo, to call for independence and use Taiwan to launch strategic provocations against China—in much the same that the British and U.S. have used Ukraine and general NATO expansion eastward to provoke Russia.

The U.S. and U.K. are well aware that Taiwan is a red line for China, much as Ukraine is for Russia. In an interview with CNN, J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior fellow with Global Institute Taiwan, commented: “Taiwan has been in recent years seizing the opportunity to expand its international space ... but [is, as with] more and more other democracies ... willing to challenge what just a few years ago had been unbreachable red lines defined by Beijing.”

Global Times interviewed Li Fei, a professor with the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University, to present the Chinese view:

“There are some forces, especially the separatist ruling Democratic Progressive Party on the island and the U.S. that are encouraging the DPP to seek secession, are trying to challenge the mainland’s sincerity and patience by increasing the degree of provocation, including strengthening military cooperation and diplomatic interactions.... All of these dangerous acts have challenged the bottom-line of the mainland and seriously offended the Chinese people.... The U.S. and the Taiwan secessionists are trying to hijack the people on the island to seek their own interests under the risk of war,”

Li said.