KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te stated on June 16 that China views the annexation and “elimination” of Taiwan as its great national cause. Addressing cadets at the military’s premier academy, he emphasized the importance of understanding the adversary and resisting defeatism.
Since assuming office last month, Lai has faced sustained personal attacks from China, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory. Beijing has labeled him a “separatist” and conducted war games around Taiwan shortly after his inauguration.
Lai reiterated that only the people of Taiwan can decide their future and has repeatedly offered to engage in talks with Beijing, but these offers have been rebuffed.
Speaking in Kaohsiung at the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Whampoa Military Academy, Lai highlighted the current geopolitical challenges. “The biggest challenge is to face the powerful rise of China, (which is) destroying the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and regards Taiwan’s annexation and the elimination of the Republic of China as the great rejuvenating cause of its people,” he said, using Taiwan’s formal name.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to calls seeking comments on Lai’s remarks. On June 15, Wang Huning, the fourth-ranked leader in China’s ruling Communist Party, addressed a forum on relations with Taiwan, asserting that “reunification is a historical necessity for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and vowed to “smash any separatist plots.”
Lai, at an event attended by senior military officials and Neil Gibson, the top US diplomat in Kaohsiung, urged cadets to defend Taiwan against Chinese annexation and affirmed that the island’s future can be determined only by its people. “We really must be able to distinguish between ourselves and our enemies and between friend and foe, and absolutely cannot accept the defeatism of ‘the first battle is the last battle’,” Lai stated, referring to a theory suggesting that Taiwan could collapse immediately upon any Chinese attack.
The Whampoa Military Academy was founded in Guangzhou (then known as Canton) in 1924, aimed at creating a professional military loyal to the nascent Republic of China. The academy moved to Nanjing, Chengdu, and finally Kaohsiung after the Republican government retreated to the island in 1949 following a civil war won by Mao Zedong’s communist forces.
China has warned that any move by Taiwan to declare formal independence would trigger an attack. However, the government in Taipei maintains that Taiwan is already an independent country, the Republic of China, with no plans to change that status.