BEIJING: China’s Fore­i­gn Minister Wang Yi has said Taiwan’s election, irrespective of its outcome, can never change the mere fact that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it.

“Taiwan has never been a country. It wasn’t in the past, and it certainly won’t be in the future,” Wang Yi said in a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo.

Any effort to that end, Wang warned, “seriously threatens the well-being of Taiwan compatriots, seriously harms the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation, and seriously jeopardises peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait region”.

Anyone trying to split apart China’s territory would be “harshly punished”, he warned, after the island chose Lai Ching-te, seen as a dangerous by ruling Communist Party, as president.

Beijing that claims Taiwan as its territory but has never renounced force to bring it under its control responded to Lai’s election by saying it would not change the “inevitable trend of China’s reunification”.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2024