Those who back Taiwan independence face ‘self-destruction,’ China’s new defense minister warns in combative summit speech

CNN:  

Taiwan is pursuing independence incrementally and those who support it will “end up in self-destruction,” China’s new defense minister warned Sunday in a wide-ranging speech at a security summit in Singapore where the extent of regional tensions was on stark display.

Minister of National Defense Adm. Dong Jun made the comments in a roughly 30-minute speech which comes days after Beijing staged major military exercises encircling the island of Taiwan after it inaugurated its new, democratically elected president last month.

“We will take resolute actions to curb Taiwan independence and make sure such a plot never succeeds,” Dong said speaking through a translator, while slamming “external interfering forces” for selling arms and having “illegal official contacts” with Taiwan, in an apparent reference to the United States, which maintains close, unofficial ties with Taiwan.

“China stays committed to peaceful reunification. However, this prospect is increasingly being eroded by separatists for Taiwan independence and foreign forces,” Dong warned.

His comments come as there has been heightened concern in the region over Beijing’s military and economic intimidation of Taiwan, which has grown more pronounced under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

In a meeting with Dong on Friday, US defense chief Lloyd Austin called on China not to “use Taiwan’s political transition — part of a normal, routine democratic process — as a pretext for coercive measures.”

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own, despite never having controlled it and has vowed to “reunify” with it, by force if necessary. Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te and his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), are both openly loathed by Beijing for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Lai has said he favors the current status quo, proclaiming that “Taiwan is already an independent sovereign country” so there is “no plan or need” to declare independence. The US also by longstanding policy does not support Taiwan independence nor the unilateral change of the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

“The DPP authorities in Taiwan are pursuing separation in an incremental way. They are bent on erasing their Chinese identity of Taiwan and severing social, historical and cultural links across the Taiwan Strait,” Dong said, reiterating Beijing’s rhetoric that they would be “nailed to the pillar of shame in history.”

Polls show growing numbers of the island’s people – especially young people – view themselves as distinctly Taiwanese and have no desire to be part of China, an authoritarian one-party state compared to Taiwan’s democracy. Less than 10% now support an immediate or eventual unification, and only 3% identify primarily as Chinese – while 67% see themselves as primarily Taiwanese.

Taiwan called Dong’s comments in Singapore “provocative and irrational.”

“Any… coercive actions that disregard public opinion run contrary to democracy and human rights, or any resort to war will eventually be counterproductive,” Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.

Dong, a former naval commander, is making his debut at the Shangri-la Dialogue security summit after being appointed to his position late last year following a surprise shake-up at the top of China’s Defense Ministry.

The gathering plays out amid a contentious security landscape across the region, where China is widely seen by its neighbors as using its military might to assert disputed territorial claims and bid for military prominence in a part of the world where the US has deep security ties.

Chinese vessels and aircraft have been widely documented patrolling and making aggressive maneuvers against others operating in international waters and skies as it asserts disputed claims in the East and South China Seas.

But Dong painted a different vision of China in his speech, framing it as a benign power whose military “never acts from the so-called position of strength,” while taking oblique aim at the US saying, “we will not allow anyone to bring geopolitical conflicts or any war, whether hot or cold to our region.”