Taiwan’s newly inaugurated president William Lai has called on China to stop threatening the island and accept the existence of its democracy.
He urged Beijing to replace confrontation with dialogue, shortly after being sworn in on Monday.
He also said Taiwan would never back down in the face of intimidation from China, which has long claimed the island as its own.
China responded by saying, “Taiwan independence is a dead end”.
“Regardless of the pretext or the banner under which it is pursued, the push for Taiwan independence is destined to fail,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at the daily press briefing on Monday afternoon.
Because the policy of deliberate ambiguity is consistent with what Taiwanese people want and has successfully maintained peace for over 40 years while still allowing Taiwan to be functionally independent.
But, you know, who cares about peace and prosperity for ordinary people when our leaders could score a couple political points against their leaders, amirite?