Taiwan’s Lai pledges to defend national sovereignty after Beijing holds live-fire drills around island.<\/p>\n
Chinese President Xi Jinping\u00a0has pledged to\u00a0achieve the\u00a0\u201creunification\u201d of China and Taiwan,\u00a0calling\u00a0Beijing\u2019s long-held goal\u00a0\u201cunstoppable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a New Year\u2019s address delivered a day after China\u2019s military wrapped up war games around Taiwan, Xi on Wednesday invoked the \u201cbond of blood and kinship\u201d between Chinese people on each side of the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable,\u201d Xi said.<\/p>\n
Xi also hailed the institution in 2025 of an annual \u201cTaiwan Recovery Day\u201d, marking the end of imperial Japan\u2019s rule of the island at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s speech came on the heels of two days of live-fire drills simulating a blockade of the island, in what officials called a \u201cstern warning\u201d against \u201cseparatist\u201d and \u201cexternal interference\u201d forces.<\/p>\n
The drills were the largest ever held around Taiwan in terms of geographical area.<\/p>\n
The war games, codenamed \u201cJustice Mission 2025\u201d, came just days after the United States approved its largest-ever arms package to Taiwan, valued at $11.1bn.<\/p>\n
China views self-governing Taiwan as part of its territory and has long pledged to bring the island under its control, using force if necessary.<\/p>\n
Taiwan\u2019s\u00a0ruling\u00a0Democratic Progressive Party\u00a0maintains\u00a0that the island\u00a0is a de\u00a0facto independent country,\u00a0though\u00a0it has\u00a0not\u00a0formally\u00a0declared\u00a0independence.<\/p>\n
In his New Year\u2019s Day address on Thursday, Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te said Taiwan needed to become \u201csafer and more resilient\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the face of China\u2019s rising expansionary ambitions, the international community is paying attention to whether the Taiwanese people possess the resolve for self-defense,\u201d Lai said in a speech from the presidential office.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs president, my position has always been clear: to staunchly defend national sovereignty, strengthen national defense, and enhance whole-of-society defense and resilience, and to comprehensively establish robust deterrence and democratic defense mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Taiwan elects its leaders and has its own military, passport and currency, the island is officially recognised by just 11 countries and Vatican City.<\/p>\n
China insists that countries do not officially recognise Taipei in order to maintain diplomatic ties with Beijing.<\/p>\n
Although the US does not officially recognise Taiwan, Washington is committed to helping the island to defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.<\/p>\n
While Washington is Taipei\u2019s principal supplier of arms, the law does not stipulate any obligation to directly intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese blockade or invasion.<\/p>\n
Opinion polls suggest a large majority of Taiwanese favour the status quo, with much smaller proportions supporting imminent moves towards formal independence or unification.<\/p>\n
In his speech on Wednesday, Xi also hailed China\u2019s innovation in industries including artificial intelligence and space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sought to energise high-quality development through innovation. We integrated science and technology deeply with industries, and made a stream of new innovations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany large AI models have been competing in a race to the top, and breakthroughs have been achieved in the research and development of our own chips. All this has turned China into one of the economies with the fastest-growing innovation capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taiwan’s Lai pledges to defend national sovereignty after Beijing holds live-fire drills around island. Chinese President Xi Jinping\u00a0has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,512,43,14512,44,84,11069,41,39,42,40,9731],"class_list":{"0":"post-384226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-military","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-taiwan","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories","19":"tag-xi-jinping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}