Taiwan wants status quo, not China’s path, says President
Taiwan’s president on Sunday called for the maintenance of the political status quo in a forthright speech which acknowledged rising pressure from China.
Tsai Ing-wen also firmly rejected Chinese military coercion, a stance driven home by a rare demonstration of Taiwan’s defence capabilities in a parade on its National Day.
A choir of singers from Taiwan’s various indigenous tribes sang to open the ceremony in front of the Presidential Office Building in the centre of Taipei that was built by the Japanese who ruled the island as a colony for 500 years until the end of World War II.
“We will do our utmost to prevent the status quo from being unilaterally altered,” she said. China claims Taiwan as part of its national territory although the island is self-ruled.
“We will continue to bolster our national defence and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us,” Tsai said. “This is because the path that China has laid out offers neither a free and democratic way of life for
Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people.”
Surveys show overwhelming favour to their current de-facto independent state and strongly rejects unification with China, which claims as part of its national territory to be brought until its control by military force if necessary. Taiwan has evolved into a vibrant democracy while China remains a deeply authoritarian, single-party Communist state.
Tsai, who rarely directly singles out China in her public speeches, acknowledged the increasingly tense situation that Taiwan faces as Chinese military harassment intensified in the past year. Since September of last year, China has flown fighter jets more than 800 times towards Taiwan.