TAIPEI, April 11 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Saturday that it spotted 16 Chinese warplanes operating near the island the previous day, around the same time China’s president was meeting the Taiwanese opposition leader.
Late on Friday morning, Chinese President Xi Jinping met Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) in Beijing, where Xi said he “absolutely would not tolerate” independence for Taiwan, which China views as its own territory.
Cheng has portrayed her visit as a reconciliation mission to lessen tensions, and told Xi she looked forward to the KMT and Communist Party advancing the “institutionalisation” of peace across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s defence ministry, in its daily report on Chinese military activity in the previous 24 hours, said that 16 Chinese warplanes flew near the island from mid-morning to mid-afternoon on Friday. Xi and Cheng met at 11 am (0300GMT).
Shen Yu-chung, a deputy minister at Taiwan’s China-policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters in Taipei on Saturday that using military coercion against Taiwan as a means of applying pressure for political negotiations has always been China’s “go-to tactic”.
“So on one hand we see them sending out messages of peace, while on the other hand they continue to use military force to pressure Taiwan without letup,” he added.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment.
In Beijing, KMT Vice Chairman Chang Jung-kung said that the key to promoting peace lies in offering Taiwan’s people a choice between peace and reconciliation, or war.
Engaging with China and promoting cross-strait peace yields “peace with dignity,” not the bowing of one’s head to “shake hands” like Taiwan President Lai Ching-te has said, Chang added, according to a KMT statement.
Lai’s office said on Friday night that what the Xi-Cheng meeting sought to highlight was that “Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China” and to advance “the annexation of Taiwan”.
“Taiwan’s future can only be decided by the Taiwanese people themselves,” Lai’s spokesperson Karen Kuo said in a statement.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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