China refused yesterday to retract statements made by one of its generals that it would use nuclear weapons against American cities if the US military intervened if the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was to invade Taiwan. The comments came amid a flurry of criticism from Washington and Taipei on Friday.
But Beijing insisted that it would resolutely seek to resolve the "Taiwan question" in a peaceful manner.
"We will never tolerate Taiwan independence, neither will we allow anybody to separate Taiwan from the motherland," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.
"We hope the United States will fulfill its commitments [on Taiwan] with concrete actions and join efforts with China to maintain the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," he said.
The spokesman was commenting on statements made this week by Major General Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎), dean of China's National Defense University, who said China could launch a nuclear attack on "hundreds" of US cities if Washington interfered militarily in the dispute over Taiwan's status.
"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Zhu said. "If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond."
China's foreign ministry spokesman said that Zhu's comments reflected his personal views, but refused to clarify whether such views also represented the position of the government.
"My statement is clear, how you interpreted it is up to you," Zhu added.
"We firmly believe it is in the interests of both China and the United States, as well as in the interests of the peace, stability and development of the Asia Pacific region and the whole world, to oppose Taiwan independence and maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," he said.
"We will firmly abide by the principles of peaceful reunification and `one country two systems' and we will express the deepest sincerity and exert the greatest efforts to realize peaceful reunification," the spokesman said.
In other developments, the commander of the Guangdong Military District of the PLA, Liu Zhenwu, departed China yesterday at the head of a six-member delegation for a visit to the US at the invitation of the US Pacific Command, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching