China plans to “take off the gloves” and take strong action if US president-elect Donald Trump continues to provoke Beijing over Taiwan once he assumes office, two leading state-run newspapers said yesterday.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Trump said the “one China” policy was up for negotiation.
“If Trump is determined to use this gambit in taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves,” the English-language China Daily said.
The Global Times, an influential state-run tabloid, echoed the China Daily, saying Beijing would take “strong countermeasures” against Trump’s attempt to “impair” the “one China” principle.
“The Chinese mainland will be prompted to speed up Taiwan reunification and mercilessly combat those who advocate Taiwan’s independence,” the paper said in an op-ed.
“Any person should understand that in this world there are certain things that cannot be traded or bought and sold,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) told a daily news briefing. “The ‘one China’ principle is the precondition and political basis for any country having relations with China.”
“If anyone attempts to damage the ‘one China’ principle or if they are under the illusion they can use this as a bargaining chip, they will be opposed by the Chinese government and people,” she said. “In the end it will be like lifting a rock to drop it on one’s own feet.”
The Global Times said that Trump’s endorsement of Taiwan was merely a ploy to further his administration’s short-term interests, adding: “Taiwan might be sacrificed as a result of this despicable strategy.”
“If you do not beat them until they are bloody and bruised, then they will not retreat,” Yang Yizhou (楊毅周), deputy head of China’s government-run All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, told an academic meeting on cross-strait relations in Beijing on Saturday.
Taiwanese independence must “pay a cost” for every step forward taken, “we must use bloodstained facts to show them that the road is blocked,” Yang said, according to a report on the meeting in yesterday’s People’s Daily Overseas Edition.
The China Daily said Beijing’s relatively measured response to Trump’s comments in the Wall Street Journal “can only come from a genuine, sincere wish that the less-than-desirable, yet by-and-large manageable, big picture of China-US relations will not be derailed before Trump even enters office.”
However, China should not count on the assumption that Trump’s Taiwan moves are “a pre-inauguration bluff, and instead be prepared for him to continue backing his bet,” it said.
“It might be costly. However, it will prove a worthy price to pay to make the next US president aware of the special sensitivity and serious consequences of his Taiwan game,” the national daily said.
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