Taiwan President is escalating tensions, China says ahead of key speech

Taiwan’s former President Tsai Ing-wen and new President Lai Ching-te wave to people during the inauguration ceremony outside the Presidential office building in Taipei
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te is escalating tensions with “sinister intentions”, China’s government said, ahead of a keynote speech Mr. Lai will give in Taipei that could set off a Chinese military response.

Mr. Lai, who took office in May after winning an election in January, is detested by China, which calls him a “separatist.” Beijing claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, a view Lai and his government reject.

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Responding late on Tuesday (October 8) to comments Mr. Lai gave on the weekend that it is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said he was confusing right from wrong.

Mr. Lai continues to peddle a theory that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are two separate countries, it said in a statement.

“Lai Ching-te’s Taiwan independence fallacy is just old wine in a new bottle, and again exposes his obstinate stance on Taiwan independence and his sinister intentions of escalating hostility and confrontation,” it added.

Mr. Lai will give his main National Day speech on Thursday (October 10), which marks the overthrow of the last Chinese dynasty in 1911 and the ushering in of the Republic of China.

The defeated republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name.

Taiwan’s China policy making Mainland Affairs Council said it was an objective fact that since 1949 the People’s Republic of China had never ruled the island.

“The Taiwan Affairs Office’s remarks have made Taiwan’s people see clearly that the Chinese communists regard themselves as the sole legitimate government of China and simply do not allow any room for the survival of the Republic of China,” it said.

China is likely to launch military drills near Taiwan in response to Lai’s speech as a pretext to pressure the island to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials say.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said they could not speculate on what China would or would not do.

“However, it is worth emphasising that using routine annual celebrations or public remarks as a pretext or excuse for provocative or coercive measures undermines peace and stability,” the spokesperson said.

Mr. Lai says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future, and has repeatedly offered talks with Beijing but has been rebuffed.