UNITED NATIONS: China warned Thursday at the United Nations not to underestimate its “strong will” on Taiwan, while saying Beijing preferred peaceful means to take the self-governing democracy.
Addressing the General Assembly, Vice President Han Zheng repeated Beijing’s stance that Taiwan—around which the communist mainland has staged repeated military exercises—constitutes an “inalienable part” of China.
“No one should ever underestimate the firm resolve, strong will and the power of the Chinese people to safeguard their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.
“Realizing China’s complete reunification is a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation,” he said.
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Nearly all countries recognise Beijing rather than Taipei but the United States has a strong unofficial relationship with Taiwan, to which it provides weapons to ensure its self-defense.
Some US officials have voiced concern that China is stepping up preparations to seize the island by force, especially if Taiwan makes moves to declare its independence formally.
Experts say that China has been reviewing lessons from Ukraine, which Russia has failed to seize a year and a half after invading.
China is allied with Russia but has stopped short of providing large amounts of military support to Moscow.
Han said that China wanted a “cessation of hostilities and resumption of peace talks” on Ukraine.
“China supports all efforts that are conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis, and stands ready to continue playing a constructive role for the early attainment of peace,” he said.
Han earlier in the week met on the sidelines of the General Assembly with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the latest effort by the two powers to manage their wide-ranging tensions.
Taiwan’s defence minister said China’s recent military activities were “abnormal”, after a spike in incursions by Chinese warplanes around the island this week.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has maintained it will seize it one day—by force, if necessary.
Beijing performs near-daily aerial incursions around the island, and on Monday Taiwan’s defence ministry reported a “recent high” of 103 warplanes within a 24-hour window.
“Our enemy’s recent movements are really quite abnormal,” Taiwan’s defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told reporters outside parliament in Taipei on Friday.
“Our initial analysis is that up to September, they have been doing joint exercises, including land, sea, air and amphibious,” he said.
His comments came a day after the ministry flagged that it was “monitoring (China’s) long-range artillery, rocket forces and ground troops around Fujian province’s Dacheng Bay”—an area facing the island across the Taiwan Strait.
“The threat posed by PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army) activities have led to an escalation of tension and damaged the regional security,” said ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang on Thursday, referring to the Chinese military.
“The closer the PLA’s aircraft are to Taiwan, the stronger our countermeasures will be.”
China has made no official comment on Monday’s massive show of force, although its state tabloid Global Times said the “relevant combat training activities are necessary actions to safeguard national sovereignty”.
Since Monday, dozens more planes have been detected around Taiwan, with many briefly crossing a so-called median line bisecting the Taiwan Strait—a 180-kilometre (110-mile) waterway separating the island from China.
On Friday morning, the defence ministry said 32 Chinese aircraft were detected within the previous 24 hours, publishing a map that illustrated the flight path of 17 planes crossing the median line.
Two of them ventured around Taiwan’s southern tip, according to the map.
Earlier this week, US officials from the Pentagon said a direct invasion by China would not be easy due to Taiwan’s mountainous terrain and lack of landing beaches.
They also said combining amphibious and airborne assault operations would be “extremely complicated”.
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