Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen replied to Xi Jinping’s call for the peaceful reunification of the island with the mainland, in his Oct. 9 speech on the 110th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, by declaring that Taiwan must “resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty,” and stressed that “the future of the R.O.C. (Taiwan) must be decided in accordance with the will of the Taiwanese people.”
“Let us here renew with one another our enduring commitment to a free and democratic constitutional system, our commitment that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other,” she said in a speech today, the South China Morning Post reported.
Tsai further warned that Taiwan is facing the “most complex situation” in the past 72 years, since the end of the Chinese civil war, stating that Taiwan wants “an easing of cross-strait relations” and will not “act rashly,” but stressed “there should be absolutely no illusions that the Taiwanese people will bow to pressure.… We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us.”
