China won't tolerate formal independence for Taiwan, President Hu Jintao (
"We will continue to make our greatest efforts with the utmost sincerity to seek the prospects of peaceful reunification," Hu said at an official gathering, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
However, "We will never tolerate `Taiwan independence' and never allow the `Taiwan independence' secessionist forces to make Taiwan secede from the motherland under any name or by any means," he said.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
While those comments echoed Beijing's longstanding policy toward Taiwan, other comments by Hu seemed intended to set a more positive tone.
Tensions between the two sides have developed "certain signs of relaxation," Hu said, adding that "new and positive factors" had recently appeared to dampen support for Taiwan's formal independence.
Hu didn't say what those positive factors were, but he appeared to have been referring the failure of President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party to win an outright majority of legislative seats in last December elections.
China's parliament, which opens its annual session today, is due to pass an anti-secession law that officials say is aimed at discouraging Taiwan from pursuing independence.
Hu was speaking to delegates appointed by Beijing to represent Taiwan in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the NPC, according to Xinhua.
"The intensified activities of the `Taiwan independence' secessionist forces have posed a grave impact on the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations," Hu was quoted as saying.
He accused Taiwan's leaders of pursuing "creeping independence," Xinhua said.
"The Taiwan authorities have deliberately provoked antagonism across the Taiwan Straits and tried every means to undermine the status quo that the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China," Hu said.
"If we do not oppose and check the `Taiwan independence' secessionist forces and their activities resolutely, they will certainly pose a severe threat to China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, ruin the prospects of peaceful reunification, and harm the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation."
Another Chinese official defended the anti-secession bill earlier yesterday, saying it was not a preparation for war with Taiwan.
"China's secession law is not a war mobilization act," Jiang Enzhu (姜恩柱), a spokesman for the NPC, told a news conference.
Jiang said it was aimed at "opposing and containing" separatist forces on Taiwan.
"It is by no means targeted against the Taiwan compatriots. The Taiwan compatriots are not in favour of independence," he said.
He also accused Taiwanese activists of misrepresenting the proposed law: "It will be futile for independence forces to distort this law to mislead international public opinion."
Jiang also officially announced details of China's military budget, including a 12.6 percent increase in military spending for this year.
The rise in military spending adds to a series of double-digit annual increases as Beijing modernizes its forces to back up threats to invade Taiwan. The military budget will total 247.7 billion yuan (US$29.9 billion), Jiang said.
China has announced double-digit increases in military spending nearly every year for more than a decade as it modernizes the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army. With unreported sums for weapons acquisition and other confidential expenditures added in, China's total military spending is believed to be as much as several times the announced figure.
This year, the additional spending will help pay for added training and more modern weapons, Jiang said.
In related news, former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), 78, submitted his resignation yesterday from his last official post as chairman of a largely ceremonial government military panel, the government said, completing a long-planned retirement.
Jiang submitted his request to resign as chairman of the Central Military Commission to leaders of the NPC, the official Xinhua News Agency announced.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
WAR’S END ANNIVERSARY: ‘Taiwan does not believe in commemorating peace by holding guns,’ the president said on social media after attending a morning ceremony Countries should uphold peace, and promote freedom and democracy, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday as Taiwan marked 80 years since the end of World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War. Lai, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and other top officials in the morning attended a ceremony at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) to honor those who sacrificed their lives in major battles. “Taiwanese are peace-loving. Taiwan does not believe in commemorating peace by holding guns,” Lai wrote on Facebook afterward, apparently to highlight the contrast with the military parade in Beijing marking the same anniversary. “We
RSS