Taiwan pushing back on China’s moves

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan on Thursday denounced China’s latest moves to increase its global isolation, saying residents of the self-governing island would reject attempts to deny its existence.

China in recent days has forced international airlines to stop referring to Taiwan as a separate country on their websites. It also reportedly prompted the Asian Olympic Committee to withdraw the island’s right to host a youth competition scheduled for next year in the central city of Taichung.

“These are attempts to destroy Taiwan’s sovereignty, and erase it from the world map,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee said at a news conference.

Beijing’s action is aimed at increasing Taiwan’s isolation and prodding it toward a political union with China. Taiwan is already excluded from the United Nations and other major international organizations, and China has been steadily poaching away the self-governing island’s dwindling number of diplomatic partners.

Beijing also has stepped up its military threats by sending warplanes on patrols around the island and staging war games on its side of the Taiwan Strait.

It has also offered preferential terms for talented young people from the high-tech island to work in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing.

China has taken an increasingly hard line since the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who has refused to endorse Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan is a part of China to be brought under its control eventually.