Beijing’s Mao vow

Take-Taiwan b’day wish

Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed his longstanding vow to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s thumb in a speech marking the late Communist leader Mao Zedong’s 130th birthday.

“The complete reunification of our motherland is an overall trend, a righteous cause, and the common aspiration of the people,” the 70-year-old proclaimed Tuesday, according to the South China Morning Post. “Our motherland must be reunified, and it will surely be reunified.”

Taiwan has operated as a self-governing island since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, with its own government, currency and military.

Beijing has long maintained that Taiwan is part of China, and Xi has kept military force on the table to bring about a reunification, though he reportedly told President Biden last month that his preference is to annex the island peacefully.

For decades, the US has observed a “One China” policy, which acknowledges Beijing’s claim to the island but does not recognize its sovereignty.

Meanwhile, officials in Washington have kept the specter of military intervention on the table if China attempts to invade Taiwan.

Biden has repeatedly suggested that the US would take military action if China invades Taiwan, only for the White House to repeatedly backpedal on some of those suggestions.

When asked by CBS’s “60 Minutes” in September 2022 if the US would defend Taiwan, Biden responded, “Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack.”

On Tuesday in Beijing, Xi hailed Mao as a “spiritual treasure.”

Ironically, Mao had Xi’s father purged from the Chinese Communist Party, while the future leader was sent to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s. Xi ultimately was accepted back into the CCP fold in the mid-1970s.

Taiwan is poised to hold presidential elections in January, and Western officials have expressed fears that the CCP may meddle in the vote. Incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen is termlimited and cannot run for re-election.