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BEIJING: China has rejected Taiwan’s latest offer of talks, saying the government was engaging in a “cheap trick” and provocation by seeking confrontation with China at all times.
Taiwan is ready to have “meaningful” talks with China as equals as long as they are willing to put the confrontation aside, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday (January 1), offering another olive branch to Beijing in her speech. New year.
China sees the democratic and autonomous island as its own territory and cut off a mechanism of formal talks in 2016 after Tsai was first elected, seeing her as a separatist bent on a formal declaration of independence.
In a statement late Friday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said there was no way to change the reality that the island was part of China, and the Taiwanese government’s refusal to accept that was the root cause of current tensions.
READ: In the New Year’s speech, the president of Taiwan again approaches China
Since 2016, Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “has continued to provoke seeking independence, facing the mainland at all times, deliberately creating a confrontation across the Taiwan Straits,” he said.
“They spoke again about the so-called ‘dialogue’, but where can that come from?” added the office. “We urge the DPP authorities to stop him with these cheap tricks that deceive people.”
Tsai, overwhelmingly re-elected last year with a commitment to stand up to China and defend Taiwan’s democracy and security, has repeatedly said that Taiwan is already an independent country called the ROC, its formal name.
LEE: US warships transit through the Taiwan Strait, China denounces ‘provocation’
Tensions have risen in recent months with China ramping up its military activities near the island, including occasionally flying fighter jets across the middle line of the Taiwan Strait, which generally serves as an unofficial buffer.
China says it is responding to “collusion” between Washington and Taipei, outraged by growing US support for the island. Beijing sees this as a precursor to Taiwan’s formal declaration of independence, a red line for China.
