Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen promised to defend the island from growing pressure from China at the end of a week of unprecedented tensions with Beijing: “Taiwan will not bow to the pressure and will defend its democratic lifestyle,” he said. said the leader speaking on the occasion of the celebrations for the National Day of the island, “we will continue to strengthen our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves to ensure that no one can force Taiwan to follow the path that China has mapped out for us” .
National Day was an opportunity for Taiwan to show off its military arsenal. During the ceremony, a parade was held in which weapons including missile launchers and armored vehicles were displayed as fighter planes and helicopters flew over the area. A message to Beijing whose leader Xi Jinping said on Saturday that the reunification of China will be achieved. The Chinese president has specified that he prefers the peaceful way, but in recent days Beijing’s air raids in the Taipei air defense identification zone have increased. Since September last year, China has flown more than 800 fighter jets to Taiwan. Tsai in his speech stressed how the “vibrant democracy of the island” is at odds with the “deeply authoritarian and one-party communist state of Beijing”. “The path that China has traced offers neither a free and democratic lifestyle for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million inhabitants,” said the leader.
Polls show that Taiwanese overwhelmingly prefer their current de facto independent state and firmly reject unification with China, which has promised to bring the island under its control, by military force if necessary. After Tsai’s speech, the Chinese Taiwan Affairs Bureau issued a statement saying that the president’s party, the Democratic Progressive Party, is “the greatest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the source of turbulence and tensions in relations between the two shores ”.