As Taiwanese have unequivocally rejected the “one country, two systems” formula that China has proposed for it, the Chinese government should stop embarrassing itself by harassing Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
The council issued the statement in response to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), which criticized President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Double Ten National Day address as an attempt to “vilify the ‘one country, two systems’ policy, thereby stoking anti-China sentiment.”
Tsai’s address “exposed the Democratic Progressive Party administration’s pro-Taiwanese independence nature, which runs counter to the overall interests of the Zhonghua minzu [ethnic Chinese groups],” TAO spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said earlier yesterday.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The speech “smacks of confrontational thinking and animosity” and was an attempt to belittle “one country, two systems” to stoke anti-China sentiment, he said.
Tsai is trying to weaken mainstream public opinion in Taiwan: a desire for an improved economy, livelihood and cross-strait ties, and by doing so she can somehow “reap the electoral benefits,” he said.
The speech was deliberately misleading for portraying peaceful unification between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait — a “shared hope of all Chinese” — as a threat to Taiwan, he added.
She has also colluded with “Western anti-China forces” to portray the grand plan of revitalizing the Zhonghua minzu as a challenge to regional security, Ma said.
The council said that Tsai’s address reflected the Taiwanese collective will to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty and democracy, bolster Taiwan’s stride toward the international community, as well as the mainstream opinion of rejecting “one country, two systems.”
The council expressed regret over Beijing continuing to adopt a hostile cross-strait policy, its inability to engage in introspection and its attempts to cover up its flawed Taiwan policy with skewed criticism that Taipei “either wants unification or independence.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a speech on Jan. 2 included a proposal to impose a “one country, two systems” framework on Taiwan, thereby ramping up the pressure on Taipei, the council said, adding that this has led the international community and Taiwanese to view the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a threat to regional security.
The CCP has been accusing the Taiwanese government of attempting to gain independence to divert attention from its incompetence in handling its own domestic affairs, the council said.
It is an established fact in international relations that the Republic of China is a sovereign nation, the council said, and while Taiwanese want peace in the Taiwan Strait, they certainly would not compromise that when threatened.
The Chinese government should heed the steadfast resolve of Taiwanese to safeguard their sovereignty, and to protect their democracy and freedom, and understand that any attempt to threaten the “status quo” would be courting hostility with hostility, the council said.
Cross-strait relations will only be brought onto the correct path when China begins to recognize the reality in cross-strait relations and stopping its bullying of Taiwan, it said.
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