Chinese President Xi Jinping (second from right in the front row) put on a military uniform and took a photo with the PLA when he inspected the Central Theater of the People’s Liberation Army.Figure: Reprinted from Xinhua News Agency
In recent years, China has continuously increased its military threat to Taiwan, and has never given up on aggression once morest Taiwan by force. under international alert. Hong Kong’s “South China Morning Post” reported that Wang Jisi, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Relations, said he had never heard Chinese officials discuss the matter, nor did he know there was a “timetable for military reunification,” and that the remarks may have been exaggerated. A former U.S. ambassador to China warned that Taiwan was a neutral issue when the U.S. and China established diplomatic relations, but now it has become a “strategic hostage” between the two major powers.
The report mentioned that Wang Jisi emphasized at the “World Peace Forum” hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing on the 4th that he had never heard any senior Chinese government officials talk regarding the military reunification of Taiwan, nor had he heard that a timetable for resolving the Taiwan issue had been drawn up internally. He said: “Some people in the United States have raised this level of concern. I think it is a little reckless and malicious. Instead, I am worried that someone wants to start a war between China and the United States, which we must avoid.”
However, Wang Jisi also admitted that the risk in the Taiwan Strait is “very high” at present. He is not sure that the United States and China will not go to war in the near future. If this is unfortunate, the Taiwan Strait will be the most dangerous place. At the same time, American diplomat J. Stapleton Roy, who served as the U.S. ambassador to China from 1991 to 1995, also expressed concern regarding the possibility of war in the Taiwan Strait.
Rui Xiaojian pointed out that when the United States and China established diplomatic relations in 1979, Taiwan was actually a neutral issue. The United States might not use Taiwan to constrain China, and China might not use Taiwan to deal with the United States. However, this situation has changed, and Taiwan has become a “strategic hostage” of the two major powers. China will hold the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China this fall, and the United States will also hold midterm congressional elections. The two sides are distracted by the Taiwan Strait issue, and the risk of war is rising.
