China's opposition to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Thursday, stressing that attempts of the region's leader Lai Ching-te to solicit U.S. support for secession is doomed to fail.
"Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, and the future of Taiwan can only be decided by more than 1.4 billion Chinese people, including our Taiwan compatriots. Lai's clamoring for secession only exposes his underlying anxiety. Attempts to solicit U.S. support and build up the military to achieve secession is a dead end," said Lin at a regular press briefing in Beijing, addressing Lai's recent separatist rhetoric.
The spokesman also said that the words and deeds of the Taiwan authorities will neither change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China, nor stop the historic trend that the two sides of the Strait will and must be reunified.
"The words and actions of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities and Lai himself cannot change the fundamental nature that the Taiwan question is purely China's internal affair, nor can they shake the international community's firm commitment to the one-China principle, much less hinder the historical trend of the inevitable reunification of China. China's position of firmly opposing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear," said Lin.
China reiterates firm opposition to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
