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.

  • ammonium@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I don’t know anything about a “constitutional vow”.

    They are named the Republic of China and claim all (or most?) of mainland China in the claimed territories, (but where those are defined I can’t find):, I suppose it’s not really wrong to call that wanting to be a part of China.

    Also in the amendments they talk about the free area and the mainland area https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=A0000002

    Of course it’s a very misleading claim because if they would claim anything else they risk war with the PRC.

    All the discussion I’ve seen is also about independence vs the status quo, not independence vs joining the PRC. That’s not really on the table.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      I’d say it is wrong to call that wanting to be a part of China and especially call that a want for unification. Both Chinas consider themselves the only legit China

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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        10 months ago

        How is that wrong? And I literally made the distinction in my post if you insist on it.

        How is going from two Chinese administrations ruling China to one Chinese administration ruling China anything other than reunification?

    • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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      10 months ago

      At no point was it suggested they want to be part of PRoC.

      Both sides want one China. Both sides claim to be the only China. Both sides say this in every official state policy. Just like this one. That’s why this story is literally not news, except where news can be defined as “things published to rile up American military spending”.

      • ammonium@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        At this time is history reunification means joining the PRC, there’s no question about that. And support for that is very low in Taiwan.

        The reason they don’t say that in official statements and prefer the status quo is because they are afraid of war.

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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          10 months ago

          And? Does “status quo” sound like a weekly news item to you?

          I fully understand the situation. I don’t understand how the only thing that unites left and right in America is bring utterly terrified of China to the point where a literal unemotional reading of a statement that accords with both states’ policies is news, and someone saying it isn’t news must be suppressed as a bad actor or something.

          • ammonium@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            No, reunification isn’t the status quo, that’s ending the status quo.

            Xijinping saying mainland China and Taiwan will reunite basically means he wants to invade Taiwan. That is newsworthy.

            • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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              10 months ago

              Talking about reunification has been the status quo for 70 years.

              I’m sure America will be shocked when eventually it turns out that arming to the teeth one of its occupations beside a neighbor that it hates results in an endless war, I mean that’s only happened like 3 or 4 times, but until this story isnt one that could have been published any time in the last 70 years, no, it isn’t newsworthy.