China’s leader Xi Jinping has used his biggest agenda-setting speech in half a decade to warn the US against further support for Taiwan, chiding “external forces” for soaring tensions in the Taiwan Strait and suggesting they would be to blame if Beijing felt compelled to attack the country.
“Facing severe provocations from the Taiwan independence forces and from interference by external forces, we resolutely carried out a major struggle against separatism and interference,” Xi said in a speech opening the 20th Chinese Communist party congress on Sunday.
Reiterating Beijing’s priority to pursue unification peacefully but refusing to renounce the use of force, Xi, who did not specifically name the US, said: “What this is mainly aimed at is external forces and a small minority of Taiwan independence forces, but absolutely not the majority of Taiwan compatriots.”