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.

  • Quokka@quokk.au
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    10 months ago

    No.

    Younger generations overwhelmingly want independence.

    The issue is to renounce claims to the mainland is that China will invade, and as articles like this show that is going to remain a concern.

    So status quo continues to prevail, but that’s got like 1 or 2 elections left before younger voters are too hard to ignore.

    • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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      10 months ago

      “Just 1 or 2 elections until the post you disagreed with might be correct” is the weirdest argument I’ve ever heard

      • Quokka@quokk.au
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        10 months ago

        No, the majority already support it and do not want reunification.

        The election thing is until it’s official state policy.

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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          10 months ago

          Weird, you’re telling me the elected government aren’t representing the will of the people? What are they, communists?

          • Quokka@quokk.au
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            10 months ago

            Do you think every election runs solely on one issue?

            • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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              10 months ago

              If there’s a topic more important to Taiwanese voters than “should we rule China, Tibet and Mongolia”, I’d be interested to know what that is and why we don’t have have constant scare coverage of it blasted at us by American media every day.

              • Quokka@quokk.au
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                10 months ago

                They’re already functionally independent. Claims over territory that arent held or even attempted to reclaim aren’t as important as economic issues affecting people in the day to day.

                Take a look at the US, the majority of voters support climate action and green technologies yet the government is not focused on that. Eventually millenials and Zoomers will be in those positions of power and will reflect the majority of voters but not today, it’s the same for Taiwan.

      • lad@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        Even if ey meant what you claim ey meant, that would’ve been a perfectly correct statement. If you need to wait until the post becomes correct, the post is now incorrect

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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          10 months ago

          What are you even trying to say? “If you need to wait until the post becomes correct, the post is now incorrect” is my point.