Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called on Beijing to help maintain peace in the region in a New Year¡¯s speech, two weeks before a hotly contested election dominated by debate over the island¡¯s ties with China.
¡°We hope that both sides of the Taiwan Strait can return to healthy and constructive exchanges,¡± Tsai said. ¡°We will not provoke or submit, but we will earn the international community¡¯s trust and deepen our cooperation with democratic partners, so that we can confidently and calmly face the world and China.¡±
Tsai¡¯s remarks come ahead of the presidential election on Jan. 13, that will also help shape the course of U.S.-China relations for years. Her Democratic Progressive Party seeks to strengthen Taipei¡¯s ties with Washington, while the opposition Kuomintang is Beijing¡¯s preferred negotiating partner. The presidential candidates traded barbs over the issue of China in a debate over the weekend, but all three said they welcomed direct dialogue with Beijing.
The risk of a military conflict over Taiwan has raised concerns among stakeholders in the region. Xi told President Joe Biden during their November meeting in San Francisco that his nation would not fight a war with anyone, but that Taiwan remained the ¡°most sensitive¡± issue in their relationship. Biden has repeatedly said that the U.S. would come to the self-governing island¡¯s assistance if it was attacked.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping delivered his own annual New Year¡¯s address on Sunday, where he reiterated that China will ¡°surely be unified¡± ¡ª a reference to Beijing¡¯s aim of eventually bringing Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary.
Tsai also touted her policies from her eight years in office, including in attracting foreign investment, reducing reliance on trade from China and bolstering national defense. Speaking next to Vice President Lai Ching-te, her party¡¯s presidential candidate, she said that communicating with China is important but that it would be ¡°too heavy a price to exchange our sovereignty for this communication.¡±
¡°We welcome healthy and continued relations across the Taiwan Strait, but trade and economic exchange cannot become a political tool and business opportunities cannot become a political threat,¡± she said. ¡°We should not return to the path of reliance on China.¡±
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