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.

  • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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    6 months ago

    It is quite literally Taiwan’s constitutional vow and the opinion of every government theyve ever elected that they want to be part of China, or rather, are China.

    This is not news, both sides have said they want a form of reunification for about 70 years now. But remarkable that you have made up a lovely little narrative for yourself to enjoy from this tired propaganda.

    • Quokka@quokk.au
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      6 months ago

      No.

      Younger generations overwhelmingly want independence.

      The issue is to renounce claims to the mainland is that China will invade, and as articles like this show that is going to remain a concern.

      So status quo continues to prevail, but that’s got like 1 or 2 elections left before younger voters are too hard to ignore.

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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        6 months ago

        “Just 1 or 2 elections until the post you disagreed with might be correct” is the weirdest argument I’ve ever heard

        • Quokka@quokk.au
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          6 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@mander.xyz
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            6 months ago

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

              • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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                6 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.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          6 months ago

          Even if ey meant what you claim ey meant, that would’ve been a perfectly correct statement. If you need to wait until the post becomes correct, the post is now incorrect

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            6 months ago

            What are you even trying to say? “If you need to wait until the post becomes correct, the post is now incorrect” is my point.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      That doesn’t sound right at all to me, do you have a source?

      Less than 12% of Taiwanese favour unification with China.

      EDIT: Here are a few quotes from Tsai Ing-Wen, the president of Taiwan for the past 8 years. Maybe people can make up their mind on whether the claim that ‘both’ parties in Taiwan want to unify with China seems to hold water:

      “We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” Tsai told the BBC. “We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.” [source]

      The consensus of the Taiwanese people … is to defend our sovereignty and our free and democratic way of life. There is no room for compromise on this [source]

      Ever since 2016, my administration has kept its promises and maintained the status quo. We have adhered to the Four Commitments. We do not provoke, we do not act rashly, and we will absolutely not bow to pressure. [source]

      • ammonium@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I don’t know anything about a “constitutional vow”.

        They are named the Republic of China and claim all (or most?) of mainland China in the claimed territories, (but where those are defined I can’t find):, I suppose it’s not really wrong to call that wanting to be a part of China.

        Also in the amendments they talk about the free area and the mainland area https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=A0000002

        Of course it’s a very misleading claim because if they would claim anything else they risk war with the PRC.

        All the discussion I’ve seen is also about independence vs the status quo, not independence vs joining the PRC. That’s not really on the table.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          6 months ago

          I’d say it is wrong to call that wanting to be a part of China and especially call that a want for unification. Both Chinas consider themselves the only legit China

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            6 months ago

            How is that wrong? And I literally made the distinction in my post if you insist on it.

            How is going from two Chinese administrations ruling China to one Chinese administration ruling China anything other than reunification?

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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          6 months ago

          At no point was it suggested they want to be part of PRoC.

          Both sides want one China. Both sides claim to be the only China. Both sides say this in every official state policy. Just like this one. That’s why this story is literally not news, except where news can be defined as “things published to rile up American military spending”.