Taiwan’s people have been urged to “stand on the right side of history” by opposing independence in a new year’s message from the head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office delivered less than two weeks before its presidential election.
Song Tao said Taiwanese people should get cross-strait relations back on the “correct path of peaceful development” in a message published in the state-backed journal Cross-strait Connections and the party-controlled China News Service.
“Taiwan compatriots should observe the overall situation, shoulder great responsibilities, consider the bigger picture and follow the right path,” Song said.
“They should firmly stand on the right side of history, promote the return of cross-strait relations to the correct track of peaceful development, and advance the process of the peaceful reunification of the motherland.”
He said China will guard peace in the region by “firmly and persistently supporting patriotic and reunification forces within the island and opposing Taiwan independence and external interference”. He did not say who he regarded as “patriotic” or as “separatists”.
Who is running in Taiwan’s presidential race and what does it mean for Beijing?
Who is running in Taiwan’s presidential race and what does it mean for Beijing?
Taiwan will elect a new president on January 13 in a contest that is widely seen as determining the course of the island’s relationship with the mainland and US-China relations over the next few years.
Song’s remarks came on China’s first working day in the new year and less than two before the elections on January 13, which have been closely watched as the outcome is widely seen as critical for determining the island’s ties with Beijing and US-China relations in the coming years.
Beijing has in recent years stepped up military pressure on Taiwan, which it sees as breakaway territory that must be brought back under its control, by force if necessary.
Most countries, including the United States, do not officially recognise Taiwan as an independent state but many oppose any forcible change in the status quo.
The candidate of the ruling independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, Vice-President William Lai Ching-te, is leading in the polls, ahead of mainland-friendly candidates from the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party.
Song said Beijing believed “the millennium-old mission of [Taiwan] reunifying with its motherland” will be accomplished as long as people across the straits work together.
He said Beijing in the past year has provided a better environment for Taiwanese businesses and expanded cross-strait people-to-people exchanges as part of its efforts to promote “peaceful development”.
Beijing has long-described Lai as a dangerous “separatist” and “troublemaker” and has suggested voters should think about whether they want war or peace.
Taiwan’s covert extended-range missile poses limited threat to Chinese mainland
Taiwan’s covert extended-range missile poses limited threat to Chinese mainland
Song’s remarks came a day after Chen Binhua, a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, hit out at President Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP, saying Beijing hoped people would recognise the “extreme harm and destructiveness” of the ruling party’s policies.
Chen told a press conference in Beijing that anyone who continues to walk the “Tsai Ing-wen line” or “the treacherous path of independence/ provocation … will only lead Taiwan further away from peace and prosperity, and closer to the possibility of war and decline”.
