Defence minister Wei Fenghe says annexation of Taiwan ‘must be achieved’ at Asian security forum
China’s defence minister has strongly pushed back against US accusations of aggression as he sought to present Beijing as a responsible power and western countries as outsiders undermining stability in Asia.
China aimed to be “a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a protector of the international order and a provider of public goods”, General Wei Fenghe told the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore on Sunday, using a keynote phrase coined by Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Wei’s remarks came as defence and foreign policy officials and analysts at the forum confronted China over its threats against Taiwan, aggressive interceptions of western countries’ military aircraft in the South China Sea and ambitions to build footholds for its expanding armed forces.
Regarding Taiwan, Wei’s message was inflexible but not more belligerent than usual. He claimed that the country was “China’s Taiwan” and reiterated that Beijing perceived annexation of the island as a historic mission that “absolutely must be achieved” and for which its military would be ready to fight.
But Wei said peaceful unification remained “the biggest hope of the Chinese people, and we continue to hold the greatest sincerity and are willing to make the biggest effort” to achieve it.
“Wei laid out a fairly compressive position that I viewed as firm, but didn’t break any new ground. He repeated the statement [China’s president] Xi [Jinping] made to [Joe] Biden last November that China will do its utmost to pursue peaceful reunification,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund.
The relatively calm stance came as Beijing tried to avoid a further escalation in tensions with the US over Taiwan. On Friday, China praised a meeting between Wei and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin that was dominated by discussions over Taiwan as “frank, positive and constructive”.
The following day, Austin criticised Beijing in an address to the summit over “a steady increase in provocative and destabilising military activity near Taiwan”, and warned that the US would maintain “our own capacity to resist any use of force” against the country.
However, observers said China’s mild messaging belied a stance that remained hardline in substance. One US official said People’s Liberation Army officers had told their US counterparts in recent months that the Taiwan Strait was not international waters.
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