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.
I agree that Taiwan is probably more useful to Xi as a threat to rile up the nationalists than as a legitimate military objective.
I think the real risk, though, is that a mistake or overly aggressive demonstration of strength could very easily force China to commit to a full invasion once it begins to get out of control.