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China Would Have ‘No Choice But War’ If Taiwan Declared Independence

REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

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Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
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Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed his deepest fears regarding a possible Taiwan independence movement during a recent meeting with Taiwanese officials.

“The Communist Party would be overthrown by the people if the pro-independence issue was not dealt with,” Xi reportedly told head of the Kuomintang (KMT) party Hung Hsiu-chu, sources who attended the meeting revealed to the United Daily News, one of the largest newspapers in Taiwan.

Since he took power about four years ago, Xi has built himself and the Communist Party of China into the defenders of “national rejuvenation,” what Xi calls the Chinese Dream. A core component of the Chinese Dream is the “great revival of the Chinese nation,” which includes maintaining China’s territorial integrity and locking down disputed or secessionist territories, such as Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. Were Taiwan to declare itself independent, 1.3 billion Chinese people would be forced to “wake up” and watch the Chinese Dream disappear into oblivion. Were this to occur, there is a risk that the Chinese people would rise up against the party and Chinese government.

“From the position of Chinese people’s nationalism, 1.3 billion people on the mainland would not agree to Taiwan’s formal independence,” Xi was quoted as saying.

The Chinese president also noted that China would never accept foreign intervention, likely a thinly-veiled reference to the U.S.

Ties between Beijing and Taipei have been severely strained since Tsai Ing-wen, who leans towards independence in her policies, took office earlier this year. Tsai rejects the “1992 Consensus,” which holds that there is only one China but allows for different interpretations on what that actually means. Tsai told the Wall Street Journal in early October that Taiwan “will not succumb to pressure from China.”

China responded by stating that Taiwan will not be, is not, and has never been an independent country. “There is no future in Taiwan independence, and this cannot become an option for Taiwan’s future,” Zhang Zhijun, head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in May.

After Xi’s meeting with the KMT, Zhang criticized Tsai in an article for the Xinhua News Agency, claiming that she is following in the dangerous footsteps of former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian, who brought the country to “the brink of war.”

Zhang Wensheng, a professor in the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University, told SCMP that Zhang’s article suggests that China would have no choice but to go to war if Taiwan pushed for independence.

“In the circumstance of Taiwan’s independence or its invasion by foreign forces, China will certainly take all necessary measures to protect the motherland’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said in the 1990s, and this appears to still be China’s position.

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