China's Xi says reunification with Taiwan 'will be realised'
Gulf Times
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the commemoration of the 110th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution which overthrew the Qing Dynasty and led to the founding of the Republic of China.
China's President Xi Jinping said on Saturday that "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan "will be and can be realised", as tensions between Beijing and Taipei soared days after record numbers of Chinese warplanes crossed into the democratic island's air defence zone.
Self-governed Taiwan, which has never formally declared independence, lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.
"Realising national reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the nation as a whole including our brethren in Taiwan," Xi said in a speech marking the 110th anniversary of a revolution that ended millennia of imperial rule and led to the founding of the Republic of China.
A large portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the western-educated doctor who founded the Republic of China, which remains the formal name of Taiwan, towered over the stage as Xi spoke.