China speeding up plans to seize Taiwan, Blinken says - The Washington Post

This includes “a cardinal determination that the presumption quo was nary longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to prosecute reunification connected a overmuch faster timeline,” helium said. Blinken did not supply details connected the assertion of a shorter timeline and said China whitethorn beryllium consenting to usage coercive means, a imaginable that is “creating tremendous tensions.”

Responding connected Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry described Blinken’s comments arsenic an illustration of the United States reneging connected its committedness to the one-China policy, which acknowledges Beijing’s presumption that determination is lone 1 China.

“The U.S. has clip and again breached its word,” ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters. He said Washington had “substantially relaxed restrictions connected authoritative interactions” with the self-governing island, citing an August travel by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan that Beijing staunchly opposed.

“Resolving the Taiwan question is simply a substance for the Chinese,” Wenbin added.

Tensions betwixt Washington and Beijing person simmered arsenic China faces disapproval from Western governments implicit Taiwan and partnership with Russia.

China has refrained from publically criticizing Russia’s warfare successful Ukraine. The struggle stoked fears among Taiwanese residents that it could embolden their neighbour China, which claims the land it has ne'er controlled arsenic portion of its territory.

U.S.-China frictions besides heightened aft President Biden’s remark that the U.S. subject would support Taiwan successful lawsuit of an onslaught by China — comments the White House aboriginal played down. While Taiwan does not person U.S. diplomatic recognition, it maintains important ties with Washington, including arms income and trade.

In a speech Sunday astatine his party’s congress, which takes spot each 5 years, Xi said the “wheels of past are rolling toward China’s reunification” with Taiwan. He repeated intentions of taking the land of much than 23 cardinal people, and helium said that portion China preferred peaceful measures, it would reserve “the enactment to instrumentality each indispensable measures.”

Xi did not notation the warfare successful Ukraine oregon China’s ties with the United States, which ordered export bans this period to deed China’s tech and subject ambitions.

He besides described China’s “great rejuvenation” — Xi’s vision of putting the federation astatine the halfway of planetary affairs — arsenic an “irreversible humanities process.” Unification with Taiwan is simply a halfway portion of that vision.

In an uneasy stalemate betwixt the 2 sides for decades, Taiwanese leaders person vowed to support the island, portion Chinese leaders are adamant that it is portion of China.

Last year, the commandant of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the menace of China’s targeting Taiwan was “manifest during this decade, successful fact, successful the adjacent six years.”