Hsiao Bi-khim, vice presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), talks to the media outside the Central Election Commission in Taipei on Dec 11, 2023. (Photo: Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)
Published December 23, 2023
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s ruling party will not let war break out with China, but it is China that is to blame for stirring up tensions, Taipei’s former top diplomat in the United States and now frontrunner to become its next vice president, said on Friday (Dec 22).
The Jan 13 presidential and parliamentary elections will define Chinese-claimed Taiwan’s ties with Beijing and are happening as China steps up military activities around the island to assert its sovereignty claims.
China has rebuked current Vice President Lai Ching-te, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate and leading in the polls, as a dangerous separatist, portrayed the vote as a choice between war and peace, something Taiwan’s main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) has echoed.
In a live televised pre-election policy address by the three vice presidential candidates, Lai’s running mate Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s high-profile former de facto ambassador to the United States, said her opponents had consistently blamed the DPP for tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
“But the whole world knows that the real reason is that China has been expanding outward in an authoritarian posture in recent years, trying to change the existing international order and status quo. Even during the KMT’s rule, the expansion of China’s armaments never stopped,” Hsiao said.
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SOURCE: www.channelnewsasia.com
RELATED: NBC News: Xi Jinping Told Biden China Will Force Reunification of Taiwan
The blunt language came during last month’s meeting, sources said.
U.S. President Joe Biden greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week. Nov. 15, 2023, in Woodside, Calif. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
Published December 21, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden directly at their recent summit that China will reunify with Taiwan, sources confirmed to ABC News.
NBC News was the first to report the conversation.
It was unclear whether Beijing plans to use force in its effort to reunify with Taiwan, but Xi indicated they will try at first to do so peacefully, the sources said.
Xi has said as much publicly but what is noteworthy is that he said this so bluntly to the president at a summit intended to thaw their relations.
U.S. officials stress it wasn’t surprising given what they’ve heard and seen.
“I’m not gonna get into the specifics of the discussion between the two leaders. I think you can understand I’m not gonna read out that private conversation,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday aboard Air Force One.
“President Xi has been public and clear about his desires for reunification, that’s not, that’s not something different, or new. We have been clear, and the president was clear with you guys and with President Xi that we still adhere to the One China policy, we don’t support independence for Taiwan. We also don’t support a change in the status quo unilaterally and certainly not one by force and as the president has said, there’s no reason for this to come to blows,” he added.
Asked about whether U.S involvement in two other global conflicts — Ukraine and in Gaza — alters his previous commitment to defend Taiwan from any Chinese military action, Biden reiterated in November the U.S. position in favor of the One China policy, which amounts to a delicate balance between respecting China’s claim to the territory and maintaining close ties to Taiwan.
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SOURCE: www.abcnews.go.com
RELATED: ‘Beyond Unnerving:’ Graham Reacts to Report That Xi Told Biden China Will Take Taiwan
Sen. Lindsey Graham warns of drafting sanctions against the Chinese regime if it invades Taiwan.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during a press conference held by members of a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 22, 2023. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
Published December 21, 2023
Sen. Lindsey Graham warns of drafting sanctions against the Chinese regime if it invades Taiwan.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he would prepare “pre-invasion sanctions from hell” if China’s communist regime takes action to annex Taiwan.
Mr. Graham made the comment in response to an NBC report that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Joe Biden that Beijing will “reunify” Taiwan with mainland China through peaceful means and that the timeline has yet to be decided.
The report, citing three unnamed U.S. officials, said the “blunt” message was issued during the two leaders’ face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco last month.
Calling the report “beyond unnerving,” Mr. Graham vowed to work with his Democratic and Republican colleagues to “create a robust defense supplemental for Taiwan” and “draft pre-invasion sanctions from hell to impose on China if they take action to seize Taiwan.”
“To communist China, if you think you can bully your way into destroying world order without consequences, you will be making Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine look wise,” he said in a statement.
Xi has repeatedly declared that the CCP will bring the democratic island under its control. During a major Party Congress last October, Xi said China strives for “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but would “never promise to renounce the use of force.”
The Chinese regime has staged at least two large-scale strike drills around Taiwan in recent years and ramped up military activities near the island ahead of the Taiwanese presidential and parliamentary election on Jan. 13.
Mr. Graham said he believes that the U.S. Congress is “fed up with communist China’s provocations.”
“This statement by Chinese Communist Party dictator boss Xi proves the old saying, weakness anywhere provokes aggression everywhere.”
