China calls on Taiwan’s people to promote ‘peaceful reunification’
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China said Taiwan’s people should promote the process of “peaceful reunification“.
PHOTO: REUTERS
TAIPEI - The head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Jan 2 called on Taiwan’s people to promote the process of “peaceful reunification”, saying it was the common desire of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Mr Song Tao’s message, which comes less than two weeks before Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan 13, follows Chinese President Xi Jinping’s remarks in his New Year Eve’s address that China’s “reunification” with Taiwan was inevitable.
“The motherland will eventually be reunified, and it will inevitably be reunified,” Mr Song said in his New Year’s message on his office’s website.
This is the common desire and common mission of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Mr Song added.
Taiwan’s people should “promote cross-strait relations to return to the right track of peaceful development, and promote the process of peaceful reunification of the motherland”, he said.
China regards the self-governing Taiwan as its territory to be reunified with it. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims.
Both the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang, say only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
China has offered Taiwan a “one country, two systems”
Mr Song reiterated China’s support for “one country, two systems” and opposition to Taiwan’s formal independence or “interference by external forces”.
His message made no mention of the election, which the Taiwan Affairs Office has cast as a choice between war and peace.
China has continued military pressure around the island, ended some tariff cuts for Taiwan further economic measures
