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.

  • @NocturnalMorning
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    10811 months ago

    Taiwan doesn’t want to be part of China. Not that hard to understand. Xi is afraid if he relents on this, the people of china will realize he’s a shit leader and will also revolt that’s the real reason he’s taking a hard stance on this. Can’t have people realizing they dint have to put up with his shit.

    • The Octonaut
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      -16811 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
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        11 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
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          -9711 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
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            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
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              -111 months ago

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

              • Quokka
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                211 months ago

                Do you think every election runs solely on one issue?

                • The Octonaut
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                  -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
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                    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.

          • lad
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            311 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
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              -211 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 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
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          611 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
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            1111 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
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              11 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
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            211 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”.

            • @ammonium
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              211 months ago

              At this time is history reunification means joining the PRC, there’s no question about that. And support for that is very low in Taiwan.

              The reason they don’t say that in official statements and prefer the status quo is because they are afraid of war.

              • The Octonaut
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                111 months ago

                And? Does “status quo” sound like a weekly news item to you?

                I fully understand the situation. I don’t understand how the only thing that unites left and right in America is bring utterly terrified of China to the point where a literal unemotional reading of a statement that accords with both states’ policies is news, and someone saying it isn’t news must be suppressed as a bad actor or something.

                • @ammonium
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                  11 months ago

                  No, reunification isn’t the status quo, that’s ending the status quo.

                  Xijinping saying mainland China and Taiwan will reunite basically means he wants to invade Taiwan. That is newsworthy.

                  • The Octonaut
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                    11 months ago

                    Talking about reunification has been the status quo for 70 years.

                    I’m sure America will be shocked when eventually it turns out that arming to the teeth one of its occupations beside a neighbor that it hates results in an endless war, I mean that’s only happened like 3 or 4 times, but until this story isnt one that could have been published any time in the last 70 years, no, it isn’t newsworthy.

      • pancakes
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        911 months ago

        This is proof that anyone can just say anything on the internet.

        • The Octonaut
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          111 months ago

          Yes as I sit on -125 votes it’s very clear that all voices are heard.