Chinese president Xi Jinping has warned that 'all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait' will be 'reunified' in his sabre-rattling New Year message.
He said today that China's reunification with Taiwan is inevitable as he addressed the nation less than two weeks before the Chinese-claimed island elects a new leader.
'All Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,' Xi said according to state news agency Xinhua.
The January 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are happening at a time of fraught relations between Beijing and Taipei. China has been ramping up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over democratically governed Taiwan.
China considers Taiwan to be its 'sacred territory' and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under Chinese control, though Xi made no mention of military threats in his speech carried on state television.
China has taken particular exception to current Vice President Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate for Taiwan's ruling Democratic Party (DPP) and leading in opinion polls by varying margins, saying he is a dangerous separatist.
Responding late on Saturday to Lai's comments at a live televised presidential debate earlier in the day, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said Lai had 'exposed his true face as a stubborn "worker for Taiwan independence" and destroyer of peace across the Taiwan Strait'.
'His words were full of confrontational thinking,' spokesperson Chen Binhua said in a statement.
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