China’s challenges for the coming year are many. Taiwan is one of the hottest issues after a year of tensions, as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued and that between Israel and Hamas erupted. In the president’s end-of-year speech Xi Jinping addressing the nation he reiterated that China “will definitely be reunified” with the island. “All Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common goal and share the glory of renewal of the Chinese nation“Xi underlined, quoted by the state news agency Xinhua. In his New Year’s speech broadcast by CCTV, the president said that reunification with Taiwan is a “historical necessity“.
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Statements that come a few days before the elections in Taiwan. Beijing criticized the presidential candidate, William Laicalling it a “destroyer of peace” after his words in a televised debate in which he defended Taiwan’s right to govern itself as a democracy. Chen Binhua, spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Lai, currently vice president and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party currently in government he is “the instigator of a potentially dangerous war in the Taiwan Strait.” Lai said he was willing to hold talks with Beijing “as long as there is equality and dignity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.” Lai is running in the January 13 presidential election against candidates Hou Yu-ih of the more pro-China Kuomintang party and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party.
There was also an exchange of greetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Xi stressed that relations between Beijing and Moscow have strengthened during 2023. “In the face of unprecedented changes in a century Despite a turbulent regional and international situation, China-Russia relations have maintained healthy and stable development and have steadily progressed in the right direction,” X was quoted as saying by state channel CCTV. “Under our joint leadership, mutual political trust has deepened, our strategic coordination has tightened, and mutually beneficial cooperation continued to produce new results.”
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