(TibetanReview.net, Oct20’24) –Amid unprecedented purges in the top military brass, a volatile situation in the South China Sea, warmongering over Taiwan, and a refusal to back down from a military standoff with India in the latter’s eastern Ladakh border area, China’s President Xi Jinping has again called on his troops to strengthen their preparedness for war. The latest call has come just days after Beijing staged large-scale military drills around Taiwan on Oct 14.
Xi made his comments while visiting a brigade of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force on Oct 17, reported the AFP Oct 19, citing state-run broadcaster CCTV.
The military should “comprehensively strengthen training and preparation for war, (and) ensure troops have solid combat capabilities”, CCTV was stated to have quoted Xi as saying.
Soldiers must “enhance their strategic deterrent and combat capability,” Xi has said.
He has also said Chinese military must “strongly safeguard the country’s strategic security and core interests.”
The dispute between China and Taiwan dates back to a civil war in China in which the Kuomintang nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek were defeated by Mao Zedong’s communist fighters and fled to the island in 1949.
China has vowed to take Taiwan ever since, while the latter claimed to be the legitimate government of China and he held the country’s UN seat, with the veto power, until it lost that to the communist-ruled China in the 1970s.
The independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, which now holds Taiwan’s presidency, has called the island a sovereign country, with President Lai Ching-te rejecting China’s claim to be its motherland during his Oct 10 national day speech. It prompted China to react with its latest war drills around the island as a stern warning to the “separatist acts” of “Taiwan Independence” forces.
China said Oct 16 that it will never give up its commitment to use force against Taiwan, which it wants to accept its “One China Policy”.