Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would “surely be reunified” with Taiwan during his televised New Year’s address, renewing Beijing’s threats to take over the self-ruled island, which it considers its own.

Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to regard the island of 23 million with its high-tech economy as Chinese territory and has been ramping up its threat to achieve that by military force if necessary.

“China will surely be reunified, and all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose,” Xi said in his annual address, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

China has described Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections as a choice between war and peace.

  • Quokka
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3411 months ago

    No, the majority already support it and do not want reunification.

    The election thing is until it’s official state policy.

    • The Octonaut
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -111 months ago

      Weird, you’re telling me the elected government aren’t representing the will of the people? What are they, communists?

      • Quokka
        link
        fedilink
        English
        211 months ago

        Do you think every election runs solely on one issue?

        • The Octonaut
          link
          fedilink
          English
          -111 months ago

          If there’s a topic more important to Taiwanese voters than “should we rule China, Tibet and Mongolia”, I’d be interested to know what that is and why we don’t have have constant scare coverage of it blasted at us by American media every day.

          • Quokka
            link
            fedilink
            English
            111 months ago

            They’re already functionally independent. Claims over territory that arent held or even attempted to reclaim aren’t as important as economic issues affecting people in the day to day.

            Take a look at the US, the majority of voters support climate action and green technologies yet the government is not focused on that. Eventually millenials and Zoomers will be in those positions of power and will reflect the majority of voters but not today, it’s the same for Taiwan.