By Yimou Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s next President Lai Ching-te will pledge to ensure stability by maintaining the status quo in the island’s relations with China in his inauguration speech on Monday, a new official said senior security official.
Lai, who succeeds President Tsai Ing-wen after serving as her vice president for the past four years, will face a China that has stepped up pressure – including almost daily military incursions near its airspace – on Taiwanese democracy so that it accepts its sovereignty. , a claim firmly rejected by Taipei.
Lai, 64, has repeatedly offered to hold negotiations with China, but has been rebuffed by Beijing, which has not renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Lai and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) say only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.
“We will talk about our stable and consistent approach, pursuing the fundamental principles established by President Tsai,” the new official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at a press briefing in Taipei.
“We will ensure that Taiwan plays an indispensable role in the global economy and geopolitics while maintaining the status quo and working with all parties to ensure that the status quo is not eroded.”
The official, however, said the new government will face a “more difficult and complex” reality at home and abroad, as China has staged “more provocative” military incursions that have alarmed Taiwan on a daily basis and launched influence campaigns to divide public opinion in the country. Taiwan.
“We will continue to make international society understand that it is the other side that continues to destroy the international order and ruin cross-Strait trade opportunities,” the source said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which said this week that “the new leader of the Taiwan region” must make a clear choice between peaceful development or confrontation, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
In the run-up to Lai’s election victory in January, Beijing repeatedly denounced him as a supporter of formal independence for Taiwan, framing the vote as a choice between war and peace.
China says any decision by Taiwan to formally declare independence would constitute grounds to attack the island. The Taipei government says Taiwan is already an independent country, the Republic of China, and it has no plans to change that. The Republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war against Mao Zedong’s communists.
In the days leading up to Lai’s inauguration, China stepped up its daily military activities, including staging simulated attacks on foreign ships near Taiwan, sources told Reuters.
The new official said Lai would commit to further modernizing Taiwan’s defense and continuing its programs to manufacture its own military planes and ships.
“Our goal is to ensure that conflict never breaks out,” the official said.
Lai, widely known by his English name William, also faces a major domestic challenge given that the DPP lost its parliamentary majority in January’s election.
Lawmakers clashed in chaotic scenes in Parliament on Friday as the two main opposition parties continued their controversial reforms in the House, including making false statements in Parliament a criminal offense.
Lai, writing on Facebook in the early hours of Saturday, called for a “rational” debate so that harmony can be restored and consensus reached.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee; editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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