BEIJING: China will offer firm support for “patriotic pro-reunification forces” in Taiwan and strike hard against “separatists,” the top Chinese official in charge of policy toward the democratically-governed island said in comments published on Tuesday.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory despite the objections of the government in Taipei, has ramped up its military and political pressure against the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.
Addressing this year’s annual “Taiwan Work Conference,” the ruling communist party’s fourth-ranked leader Wang Huning said officials must advance the “great cause of national reunification,” the official state-run Xinhua news agency said.
It is necessary to “firmly support the patriotic pro-unification forces on the island, resolutely strike against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, oppose interference by external forces, and safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.
The Beijing meeting was also attended by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, underscoring how China sees Taiwan as an issue it needs to promote on the international stage.
China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that.
Taiwan’s government says Beijing’s rule in the former British colony has only brought repression, with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on Tuesday citing the sentencing of
Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai
to 20 years prison the previous day.
“Jimmy Lai’s sentencing exposes the Hong Kong national security law for what it is — a tool of political persecution under China’s ‘one country, two systems’ that tramples human rights & freedom of press,” Lai wrote on X.
There was no immediate response to Wang Huning’s comments from Taiwan’s government, which says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Beijing has repeatedly warned other countries including the US against meddling in Taiwan issue, which it said is its internal affair.
In a call with US President Donald Trump last week, China’s President Xi Jinping said the Taiwan issue is the most important issue in China-US relations and Washington must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.
China refuses to speak to Taiwan’s president and has rebuffed his repeated offers of talks, saying he is a “separatist” who must accept that Taiwan is part of China.
Wang was speaking just a week after meeting a delegation from Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), who were in Beijing for a meeting of party think-tanks.
Speaking to reporters earlier on Tuesday in Taipei, KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen, who led the delegation to Beijing, said there had been no discussion of political issues when they met Wang, as the trip there was to discuss topics like tourism and AI.
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China to support ‘reunification forces’ in Taiwan, go after ‘separatists’
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China to support ‘reunification forces’ in Taiwan, go after ‘separatists’
- China has long offered Taiwan a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” model of autonomy, though no major Taiwanese political party supports that
France moves to bar US Ambassador Charles Kushner from direct government access
- French authorities had summoned Kushner to the Quai d’Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up
- Jean-Noel Barrot: ‘We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy (killing of Quentin Deranque), which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends’
PARIS: France’s top diplomat Monday requested that US Ambassador Charles Kushner no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government after he skipped a meeting to discuss comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist.
French authorities had summoned Kushner to the Quai d’Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.
Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner’s access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”
The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.
“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay, so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years,” it said.
Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The US Embassy had posted that statement on social media.
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the US ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
French authorities had summoned Kushner to the Quai d’Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.
Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner’s access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”
The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.
“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay, so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years,” it said.
Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The US Embassy had posted that statement on social media.
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the US ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
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