China, Taiwan reunification cannot be stopped–official
Defense minister says ‘no force’ can deter Beijing taking back island
BEIJING—CHINA’S defense minister made an uncompromising call on Monday for the “reunification” of Taiwan with the mainland, telling a high-level defense forum that the process was something “no force” could stop.
Self-ruled Taiwan is viewed by China as a renegade province that will eventually be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary, after the two sides split in 1949 after a civil war.
China would not stop in its efforts toward “realizing the complete reunification of the motherland,” Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe told defense ministers and officials from across Asia at the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing.
“China is the only big country in the world that has not yet achieved complete reunification,” he said. “It is something that nobody and that no force can stop.”
Relations between Taipei and Beijing have deteriorated since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party refuses to accept that Taiwan is part of “one China.” Since then China has poached a number of political allies from Taipei, leaving it with a dwindling number of nations which recognize its government.
Wei said China wanted to promote peaceful cross-strait relations, but that it would never allow “Taiwan separatists to make reckless moves and we will never sit by and watch outside forces... interfere.” “Engaging in separatism can only be a dead end,” he said.
His comments came just weeks after a huge military parade in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
The parade showed off some of the country’s latest high-tech military hardware in a defiant show of strength, including new ballistic missiles, supersonic drones and nextgeneration battlefield tanks.
Wei also repeated Beijing’s claim that the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea and disputed islands in the South China Sea were an “inherent” part of China’s territory, adding: “We can’t lose a single inch of the land left by our ancestors.”
Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, which Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan contest.