Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday that the tide of history cannot be stopped and that the complete reunification of Taiwan with the motherland must and will certainly be realised. The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission was delivered in a speech at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in which Xi promised to achieve reunification peacefully and made no mention of the use of force. His words set the tone for a day of rising tension across the Taiwan Strait.
Xi described resolving the Taiwan question as an unshakable historic mission of the Chinese Communist Party. The speech marked the 160th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary hero who led the 1911 revolt that ended centuries of imperial rule and paved the way for the Republic of China. By choosing that anniversary, Xi placed the Taiwan question inside a longer story of national revival, presenting reunification as the unfinished work of the revolution Sun began.
Xi reaffirmed his commitment to peaceful reunification and to the policy of one country, two systems, and said he was ready to engage in dialogue with Taiwan on the basis of the one China principle. The offer of dialogue was paired with a firm statement of principle: Taiwan is part of China, and its future lies in reunification. For Beijing, the formula of one country, two systems remains the framework for bringing the island back under Chinese sovereignty.
Taiwan’s government rejected the remarks swiftly. Its Mainland Affairs Council said that neither the government nor the people of Taiwan could accept one country, two systems, which it said would amount to submitting to the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party. Council spokeswoman Liang Wen-chieh said Xi’s formulation on reunification was not very different from the past, signalling that Taipei saw no new opening in the speech, only a restatement of a long held position.
Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission as G7 warns on eastern waters
The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission coincided with a warning from the Group of Seven. G7 foreign ministers said late on Wednesday, in a joint statement issued after a meeting in Paris, that China’s increasingly assertive actions in the waters east of Taiwan threaten regional stability, freedom of navigation and the security of international shipping. Taiwan’s presidency welcomed the statement, which added an international dimension to a day already charged with political symbolism.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected 29 Chinese military aircraft on Thursday, including J-16 fighters and drones, conducting a combat readiness patrol around Taiwan together with warships. The patrol underlined the military pressure that accompanies Beijing’s political messaging. While Xi spoke of peaceful reunification in Beijing, Chinese aircraft and ships were operating around the island, a combination Taipei reads as coercion rather than reassurance. The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission was thus paired with a visible show of force around the island.
Taipei rejects one country, two systems
The gap between the two sides remains wide. Beijing insists that reunification is a matter of time and history, and that dialogue must start from acceptance of the one China principle. Taipei insists that its future must be decided by its own people, and that one country, two systems is unacceptable. The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission therefore changed little on the ground, even as it restated Beijing’s position in the strongest terms.
The G7 statement adds pressure on Beijing from the world’s leading democracies. By naming the waters east of Taiwan, the ministers pointed to an area where Chinese naval and coast guard activity has grown, and where shipping lanes carry goods that matter to the global economy. Freedom of navigation in those waters is a concern that reaches far beyond Taiwan itself, touching Japan, the Philippines and the wider region. The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission therefore arrived on a day when international concern about the strait was already high.
For Taiwan, the day brought both a rejection and a reassurance. The rejection came from its own government, which dismissed Xi’s offer in plain language. The reassurance came from the G7, whose ministers spoke up for stability and for the security of international shipping. The Xi urges peaceful Taiwan reunification mission will now be watched for its follow up, in the skies and seas around the island as much as in the words spoken in Beijing.