‘INEVITABLE’:
The TAO director’s comment that Taiwanese should promote ‘reunification’ was an act of ‘direct pressure,’ a Taiwan Thinktank researcher said
By Chen Yu-fu / Staff reporter, with Reuters
A statement yesterday by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) urging Taiwanese to “stand on the right side of history” and get cross-strait relations back on the “right track” was Beijing’s latest attempt to influence public opinion ahead of the elections, a Taiwanese academic said.
Song called on Taiwanese to promote “peaceful reunification” with China, saying it was the desire of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
REPEATED MESSAGE
Photo: CNA
Song’s message came after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said 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,” Song said in his New Year’s message on his office’s Web site.
Taiwanese should “promote cross-strait relations returning to the right track of peaceful development, and promote the process of peaceful reunification of the motherland,” he said.
Song reiterated China’s support for the “one country, two systems” framework and opposition to Taiwan’s formal independence as well as “interference by external forces.”
His message made no mention of Taiwan’s elections on Saturday next week, which the TAO has cast as a choice between war and peace.
‘PRESSURE’ ON TAIWAN
Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said that with Taiwan’s presidential election approaching, China’s latest remark was an act that “asserts direct pressure” on people in Taiwan, with the aim of forcing their hand in the elections.
Xi’s remarks, Song’s statement and the Chinese balloon that flew through Taiwan’s airspace yesterday, are all attempts to interfere in the elections, Wu said.
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