Taiwan urges China to curb its ‘military adventurism’

Taiwan’s president has urged China to curb its “military adventurism” as tensions between the two sides reach their highest level in years.

Beijing has ramped up military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, as she rejects the stance that the island is Chinese territory.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has increased military and diplomatic pressure in the past two years to assert its sovereignty claims.

“We must remind the Beijing authorities to not misjudge the situation and to prevent the internal expansion of ‘military adventurism’,” Tsai said on Saturday in her New Year’s speech.

Chinese warplanes have made a historically high number of incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone in recent months.

Tsai added that authorities in Beijing “should stop the spread of military adventurism within their ranks”.

“The use of military means is absolutely not an option for resolving the differences between our two sides.”

She said that to ease tension in the region, both Taipei and Beijing must “work hard to take care of people’s livelihoods and calm the hearts of the people” in order to find peaceful solutions to problems together.

Agencies