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Xi declares China will be 'surely be reunified' with Taiwan in New Year’s address
Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would “surely be reunified” with Taiwan during his televised New Year’s address, renewing Beijing’s threats to take over the self-ruled island, which it considers its own.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would “surely be reunified” with Taiwan during his televised New Year’s address, renewing Beijing’s threats to take over the self-ruled island, which it considers its own.
Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to regard the island of 23 million with its high-tech economy as Chinese territory and has been ramping up its threat to achieve that by military force if necessary.
“China will surely be reunified, and all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose,” Xi said in his annual address, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
China has described Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections as a choice between war and peace.
Xi urges Chinese envoys to create 'diplomatic iron army'
Note: trying out /c/politics’ new international politics focus
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday urged Chinese ambassadors to forge a "diplomatic iron army" loyal to the Communist Party, reviving the abrasive "Wolf Warrior" rhetoric propagated by some diplomats as a sign of China's increasingly assertive foreign policy.
"Dare to be good at struggle and to become defenders of the national interest. It is necessary to... resolutely safeguard the interests of national sovereignty, security and development with a posture of readiness and a firm will to defy strong powers," Xi told Chinese overseas envoys gathered in Beijing, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
His remarks harked back to a more brash, confrontational style of rhetoric adopted by Chinese diplomats since 2020, which had been less prominent this year as China sought to attract foreign investment for its weakened economy.
Chinese military purge exposes weakness, could widen
Note: trying out /c/politics’ new international politics focus
A sweeping purge of Chinese generals has weakened the People's Liberation Army, exposing deep-rooted corruption that could take more time to fix and slow Chinese leader Xi Jinping's military modernization drive amid geopolitical tensions, analysts say.
China's top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment for wayward cadres. Many of these were from the Rocket Force - a key arm of the PLA overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles.
The purges are a setback for Xi who has pumped billions into buying and developing equipment as part of his modernising efforts to build a "world-class" military by 2050, with Beijing's outsized defence budget growing at a faster pace than the economy for some years.