Defiant president calls on China to seek way to coexist

TAIWAN will not accept Chinese rule or any attempts to “downgrade” its status as a democracy, Tsai Ing-wen, its president, said yesterday.

In an inauguration speech that also celebrated the island’s widely recognised success in beating back the coronavirus, President Tsai, who won a second term with a landslide in last January’s election, said: “Both sides have a duty to find a way to coexist over the long term and prevent the intensification of antagonism and differences.”

Her re-election was widely seen as an assertion of Taiwanese identity and an emphatic rejection of Beijing’s efforts to intimidate and isolate Taiwan on the global stage.

Her speech was firm but conciliatory, offering an olive branch to Beijing that Taipei was ready to peacefully negotiate a path through ongoing tensions on an equal footing but would not tolerate being undermined.

Beijing deeply mistrusts Ms Tsai, suspecting that her ruling Democratic Progressive Party may attempt to push for independence. China has refused to engage with her government since it first took power in 2016, ramping up economic, military and diplomatic pressure on the island of 24million.

China seeks to annex Taiwan, which functions like any other nation with its own government and currency, and military and foreign policy, and it has threatened to use force to do so.

The Communist regime has touted its “one country, two systems” principle – already in place in Hong Kong – as a possible future arrangement with Taiwan.

However, that model gains little traction with the island’s population, the large majority of whom identify as Taiwanese not Chinese and have had a ringside seat to Beijing’s attempts to crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement during months of street protests in the Asian financial hub.

“We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo. We stand fast by this principle,” the president warned China in her address.

Her comments drew a swift rebuke from Beijing, which said it would “never leave any room for any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ activities”.