IN his New Year’s address, China’s President Xi Jinping issued a brutal warning to Taiwan as the nation continues its war games against the self-ruled province.
President Xi is ringing in the New Year with talks of world peace and by piling on praise for his “best friend” Vladimir Putin.
But his most salient message is a warning that no one can prevent China’s “reunification” with Taiwan.
Rating the Autonomous Province in accordance with Continental China has been a long -term objective and the recent military activity has shown that China is in a position to force it.
China has already called Taiwan independence an effort and annexation through Beijing a “historical fatality. “
The president said: “People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are a single family.
“No one can sever our family bonds, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification.”
Tensions in the region are high after the election in May of the island’s last president, William Lai Ching-te, described as a “separatist” by Beijing.
Xi Jinping’s army has more army activity in the region in years as a sample of force.
This included encircling the skies and waters of Taiwan in October and conducting joint exercises with its warships and fighter jets almost close to the island.
An aircraft carrier was emblazoned with a message warning Taiwan and separatist supporters: “We are prepared for battle.”
Meanwhile, key ports have been closed through China while the island leaders continue to refuse to make Taiwan part of China.
China’s Eastern Theatre Command said that the war games “serve as a stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces.”
It further added that they were “a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding state sovereignty and national unity.”
Taiwan blasted such moves as “irrational and provocative.”
In return it dispatched “appropriate forces” by scrambling fighter jets armed with missiles.
Before this series of war games, China once raised tensions in May when filling Taiwan’s sky with dozens of fighting planes.
The training continued for more than 24 hours with 27 warships and fighting planes that block the island.
Taiwan insists it is a country after separating from mainland China amid civil war in 1949.
But China affirms that Taiwan remains a component of its territory with which it will probably have to reunify and do not exclude the use of force to take the island and position it under the command of Beijing.
The island, which is about a hundred miles off the southeast coast of China, is considered distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own charter and democratically elected leaders.
Taiwan sits in the so-called “first island chain”, which includes a list of US-friendly territories that are crucial to Washington’s foreign policy in the region.
This also puts it in an ideal situation to slow a Chinese attack on the West.
And with tensions high between the two nations, Taiwan will most likely side with the Chinese enemy if it means maintaining its independence.
Taiwan’s economy is another factor in China’s desperation to reclaim the land.
If China takes the island, it may be freer from the western Pacific allocation force and compete with the United States, thanks to a giant component of global electronics in Taiwan.
This would allow Beijing to have control over an industry that drives the global economy.
China insists that its intentions are peaceful, but President Xi Jinping has also used threats towards the small island nation.
If tensions were to escalate into a military confrontation, Taiwan’s military would be overshadowed by Chinese forces, as China is the second-largest defense spender after the United States.
Taiwan fears that a “surprise attack” through China is inevitable and has been in favor of the war for years, with XI promising for years to resume the island by force “if necessary. “
A chilling message sent to Taiwan’s government in May saying they were heading toward “a dangerous scene of war and danger. “
The Chinese defense leader, Dong Jun, said: “The Liberation Army of the Chinese people has been an indestructible and hard force to protect the unification of the homeland.
“It will act at all times with determination and strength to stop Taiwan’s independence and, at that, their attempts never succeed.
“Whoever dares to divide Taiwan from China will be crushed and suffer their own destruction. “
Despite such tensions, Xi declared on New Year’s Eve that he would promote “world peace. “
“Regardless of how the external situation develops, China will remain determined to further deepen its reforms (. . . ) and promote peace and progress in the world,” he said.
He addressed Putin in the speech, praising the Russian as his “best friend” and a “trusted companion. “
Xi told Putin: “Faced with the immediate adjustments that we do not see in a century and the turbulent exterior situation, China and Russia consistently have complex hands on the right path, alignment, not confrontation and without pointing to any third party. “
This year he marked the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Russia, which marked “a new milestone in the dating between the two countries,” Xi said.
With Putin’s continued conflict in Ukraine and the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, global politics in 2025 are as unpredictable as ever.
©News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. “The Sun”, “Sun”, “Sun Online” are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers’ Limited’s Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. View our online Press Pack. For other inquiries, Contact Us. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO)
Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/