The reunification of China and Taiwan is “non-negotiable,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said today in response to an article by a Chinese academic suggesting that China would not set a timetable for the annexation of Taiwan in the next four years.
China’s focus for the next four years would instead be revitalizing the economy, and not deciding a time to invade Taiwan, the head of Beijing’s Tsinghua University Department of International Relations Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday last week.
The TAO today said it is the personal opinion of an academic.
Photo: AP
Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China’s government and the Chinese people have committed to one day “resolve the Taiwan question” and “realize China's complete reunification as a historic mission and unshakeable commitment,” it said.
The reunification of the motherland is non-negotiable for the great revival of the Chinese race, TAO spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said in a news release.
In Yan’s article “Why China isn’t scared of Trump,” Yan said that US president-elect Donald Trump would take more extreme policies to limit China’s development in his second presidential term, further destabilizing US-China relations.
However, China’s leaders learned valuable lessons from Trump’s first term in office and “do not look at Trump with fear,” he wrote.
“As Trump courts an escalation in the trade war, his administration will likely ramp up military pressure on Beijing,” especially in relation to the South China Sea, as Taiwanese independence remains “a source of friction between Beijing and Washington, but China and the United States are unlikely to go to war over it,” he said, as Trump “will not want to get entangled in the matter of Taiwan.”
China and the US would instead focus on rebuilding their economies and domestic reforms, he added.
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