Chinese President Xi Jinping said that his country reserves its right to take “all measures necessary” to prevent “interference by outside forces” concerning Taiwan.
The Chinese leader reiterated his country’s resolve for reunification with Taiwan during this weekend’s opening ceremony for the Communist Party of China’s 20th National Congress, which is held every five years.
“The wheels of history are rolling on toward China’s reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Complete reunification of our country must be realized, and it can, without doubt, be realized,” he said, which elicited his biggest applause of the day, according to NPR.
“We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort,” he added. “But we will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.”
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Beijing considers the self-governed island of nearly 25 million people to be a part of the mainland, while the Taiwanese consider themselves to be an independent nation. The U.S. recognizes China’s claim to the island but helps Taiwan defend itself. Washington has not made clear how it would respond if China attempted to take Taiwan, a policy called “strategic ambiguity.”
Xi is expected to receive a third bid to be the leader of the country, which is only possible after he removed the two-term-limit provision in the Chinese Constitution during his second term.
Last week, the Biden administration released its highly-anticipated national security strategy and it describes China as “the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan referred to China as the country’s “most consequential geopolitical challenge,” during a briefing on the strategy, though he noted, “We’re not seeking to have competition tip over into confrontation or a new Cold War. And we are not engaging each country as simply a proxy battleground. We’re going to engage countries on their own terms and pursue an affirmative agenda to advance common interests and to promote stability and prosperity.”
Tension between the U.S. and China over Taiwan has seemingly simmered since it peaked in August amid House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, and China’s subsequent militaristic show of force. At the time, the Biden administration maintained that her arrival did not and would not change its policy on Taiwan and referenced then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s trip to Taiwan in 1997, though Beijing viewed it as an affront.
Many of those military exercises were via the navy and consisted of encroachments in the Taiwanese Strait, while there were air encroachments in their air defense identification zone as well.
“What we’ve seen right before the speaker had visited, during that visit, and after that visit, is a clear attempt by the Chinese to permanently alter the status quo in and around Taiwan, and to sort of set a new normal for their activities and behaviors,” National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told reporters in late August.
Weeks earlier, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl affirmed the Pentagon’s belief that an invasion won’t happen in the next two years, though he too spoke about their attempt to “salami slice their way into a new status quo.”
“I think a lot has been made of them — of the missile strikes, but really, it’s the activities in the Strait itself — the sheer number of maritime and air assets that are crossing over this kind of de facto center line, creeping closer to Taiwan’s shores, where it’s clear that Beijing is trying to create a kind of new normal, with the goal of trying to coerce Taiwan but also frankly to coerce the international community, given the importance of the Taiwan Strait to the global economy,” he added.
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The Chinese military has aggressively worked to progress and develop additional weapons and technology. China accelerated the pace of its nuclear expansion program to the point where they could “have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads” within roughly five years, according to DOD’s Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China report, which was released last fall.
China also conducted the first fractional orbital launch of an ICBM with a hypersonic glide vehicle in July 2021 and “demonstrated the greatest distance flown (~40,000 kilometers) and longest flight time (~100+ minutes) of any Chinese land-attack weapons system to date,” according to a report titled “Challenges to Security in Space — 2022,” from the Defense Intelligence Agency released earlier this year.
