China's military issues a new warning to proponents of Taiwanese independence, threatening to tighten the "noose" around their necks. The warning came during the Two Sessions, the Chinese Communist Party's most important political meeting of the year.
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00:00There's a new warning to Taiwan, as Beijing threatens action against what it calls separatism.
00:06China's defense ministry made this statement at the two sessions, the country's largest
00:10annual political meeting.
00:12The more excited the Taiwanese are, the tighter the rope around their necks will be, and the
00:18sharper the sword on their heads will be.
00:22For more on this, we go to Louise Wat, who joins us now from our newsroom in Taipei.
00:34Louise, those were some pretty strong words.
00:38How significant is this statement from China?
00:40Well, it's not new, and even though the language may sound colorful, it's not new either.
00:47I asked the Mainland Affairs Council, which is the Taiwanese government agency in charge
00:52of relations with China, and actually they didn't want to comment on this.
00:56Now, Wu Qian, the spokesperson that you just saw there, he said that the People's Liberation
01:04Army, China's military, is a force for countering Taiwanese independence and promoting reunification
01:11as China sees it.
01:13Now, Taiwan says only its 23 million people can decide its future, but Wu, he went on
01:21to say that in recent years, patrols around Taiwan and military deterrence have become
01:29the norm.
01:30Now, this is where Taipei would agree with him, because Chinese military, they've been
01:36increasing pressure on Taiwan by regularly sending fighter jets and naval vessels around
01:43Taiwan, and Taipei has been scrambling to counter it.
01:48Now, these comments came during Beijing's key annual political meeting, so what should
01:54we be reading into this timing?
01:57Well, it's a little bit of a stick to go with the carrot that was in evidence at the two
02:05sessions.
02:06While they have been talking tough Chinese officials at this important political meeting,
02:13they have also been giving an outreach to Taiwanese.
02:18They've talked about promoting economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan.
02:23Now, really what that means is they want to attract Taiwanese investment to China.
02:28They want to attract more Taiwanese to go and make a living there.
02:32The idea being that this will help Taiwanese see themselves as Chinese.
02:40But of course, this is nothing new either.
02:43China has been trying this approach for years, and survey after survey show that Taiwanese
02:48overwhelmingly see themselves as Taiwanese and not Chinese.
02:54And while Taiwan is always a key issue for the Chinese leadership, at the two sessions
02:59it's very clear that their focus at the moment is the slowing Chinese economy and how to
03:05get growth going again, get growth significantly going again over the next year.
03:12And that, rather than Taiwan at the moment, is likely to be Beijing's top priority.