Written by Ben Blanchard and Ann Wang
KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (Reuters) – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Sunday that China considers the annexation and “elimination” of Taiwan its major national issue, telling students at the First Military Academy that they should know their enemy and not surrender to him. Defeatism.
Lai has faced continuous personal attacks from China, which considers Taiwan its territory, since he took office last month, with Beijing describing him as a “separatist.” China organized war games around Taiwan shortly after Lai's inauguration.
Lai says that only the people of Taiwan can decide their future and has repeatedly offered to hold talks with Beijing, but his request was rejected.
Speaking in Kaohsiung in the south of the island on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Whampoa Military Academy, Lai said today's students must realize the challenges of the “new era.”
“The biggest challenge is to confront the powerful rise of China, (which) is destroying the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and views the annexation of Taiwan and the elimination of the Republic of China as the major issue for the rejuvenation of its people,” he said. Using the official name of Taiwan.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not return phone calls on Sunday seeking comment on Lai's remarks.
Wang Huning, the fourth leader of China's ruling Communist Party, told a forum held on Saturday in China on relations with Taiwan that “reunification is a historical necessity for the great renaissance of the Chinese nation,” pledging to “crush any separatist conspiracies.”
During the event attended by senior military officials as well as the top US diplomat in Kaohsiung, Neil Gibson, Lai said that the cadets must defend Taiwan against annexation by China, and that the island's future can only be decided by its people.
“We must truly be able to distinguish between ourselves and our enemies, between friend and foe, and we absolutely cannot accept the defeat that the first battle is the last battle,” Lai said, referring to a theory that Taiwan could collapse as soon as possible. China also launched no attack.
The academy was founded in the Chinese city of Guangzhou — then known in English as Canton — in 1924, more than a decade after the founding of the Republic of China, which overthrew the last emperor.
Established with Soviet assistance to give China a professional army loyal to the fledgling state, it moved to Nanjing, Chengdu and finally Kaohsiung after the defeated Republican government fled to the island in 1949 at the end of the civil war won by Mao Zedong and his Communist forces.
China says any move by Taiwan to declare formal independence would be a reason to attack the island. The government in Taipei says Taiwan is already an independent country, the Republic of China, and it has no plans to change that.