China says will do all it can for peaceful Taiwan ‘reunification’

After staging major military maneuvers around the island in recent weeks, Beijing says it is willing to go to any length to achieve peaceful "reunification" with self-ruled Taiwan.

While China claims Taiwan as its territory, the island's democratically elected government rejects the claims and says the island's 23 million people must decide their future. 

Following Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei last month, Beijing started conducting air and sea maneuvers that included shooting missiles over the island as part of its growing assertiveness toward Taiwan. The most prominent US official to visit the island in 25 years, Pelosi disobeyed a series of stern warnings to go there, inspiring the other US and European leaders to do the same.

 Liberation vs. Recapturing
Following the end of World War II, Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China (CPC) engaged in a bloody conflict with Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT) party. Chiang was defeated and fled to the island of Taiwan. Taiwan served as the focal point of both sides' propaganda for a while after that. While the Kuomintang aimed to "recapture the mainland," the CPC wanted to "liberate" Taiwan.

Ma declared, "The homeland must be reunified and will undoubtedly be reunified."

Since Tsai Ing-wen was elected president in 2016, Beijing has escalated its claim to Taiwan, claiming she is a "separatist" and refusing to engage with her. It has attempted to isolate Taipei diplomatically and has not ruled out the use of force to seize control of the island.

It has also asserted greater control over the Taiwan Strait, the 180km (110-mile) wide channel that separates China from the island of Taiwan, with Chinese warships testing the unofficial sea border.

The United States, which has diplomatic relations with Beijing but is committed to providing Taiwan with the means to defend itself, has responded to the claims with "free navigation" passages through the strait.

The destroyer USS Higgins and the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Vancouver worked together to complete a "regular Taiwan Strait transit on September 20 (local time)... in conformity with international law," according to a statement released by the US Navy's Seventh Fleet on Wednesday.

It stated that the ship had passed through a section of the Strait outside of any coastal State's territorial waters.

China,s Military Strength Compared to Taiwan             PHOTO FILE

China claimed to have followed the two ships as they passed through the waterway.

Following Biden's remarks, the White House reiterated that US policy toward Taiwan had not changed.

China has suggested that Taiwan may be governed using the "one nation, two systems" model that was implemented in Hong Kong following the return of Chinese control of the former British territory in 1997.

Ma stated that Taiwan may have a "social structure different from the mainland" to ensure that its way of life, including religious freedoms, was respected, but it was "under the precondition of preserving national sovereignty, security, and development interests."

According to opinion polls, the idea has almost no public support and has been rejected by all major Taiwanese political parties, especially in light of Beijing's enforcement of the national security law in Hong Kong in 2020.

The law, according to critics, "decimated" Hong Kong's liberties with thousands of arrests, pro-democracy legislators exiled or barred from office, the closure of civil society organizations, and restrictions on media freedom.

Beijing claims that the law has restored calm following significant protests in 2019. This claim is shared by Hong Kong's government