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.

  • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    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
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        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.