Xi Jinping declares at the Mao memorial symposium that Taiwan will "certainly" be reunited with China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on his country's commitment to reunifying with Taiwan, vowing to prevent anyone from trying to split the two nations.
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Taiwan will be reunited with the mainland, according to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also declared Beijing will "resolutely prevent anyone from splitting" the two sides in any way.
The remarks were made at a symposium honoring Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China, on his 130th birthday in Beijing. The Republic of China government was overthrown by Mao's nation in 1949, and it withdrew to Taiwan.
Even now, Beijing considers the democratically run island nation to be a part of its own territory, much to Taipei's government's disapproval. China has been holding large-scale war games in and near Taiwan for the past 1.5 years, and it frequently launches fighter jets and vessels across the Taiwan Strait.
Per reporting from the state-run Xinhua news agency, Xi said "the complete reunification of the motherland is an irresistible trend."
He added that China must deepen integration between the two sides, promote the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait, and "resolutely prevent anyone from splitting Taiwan from China in any way."
The report from Xinhua made no mention of using force against Taiwan, though China has never renounced that possibility. It also did not mention Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13.
The Chinese government has repeatedly denounced the frontrunner to be Taiwan's next president, Lai Ching-te from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as a dangerous separatist and has rebuffed his calls for talks.
Both the DPP and Taiwan's main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which traditionally favors close ties with China but denies being pro-Beijing, say only the island's people can decide their future.
Reuters contributed to this report.
