China flags willingness to ‘retake Taiwan’ with aggressive tactics

Sydney Morning Herald International Editor Peter Hartcher says the Chinese communist party has offered a “deliberate signal” that they are prepared to ramp up aggressive tactics in a bid to rejoin Taiwan to China.

Mr Hartcher told Sky News that Chinese leaders left out a “critical part of its traditional phraseology” when discussing the reunification of the two nations during the National People’s Congress.

“For decades China has talked about its working towards the peaceful reunification with Taiwan, [but] the word ‘peaceful’ was dropped from the official work report – for the first time in decades,” he said.

“This isn’t an accident.

“The significance of the one word is that, apart from the authority of the President Xi Jinping himself, there is no more sensitive political issue in China than the status of Taiwan.

“This is a very deliberate signal that while China has never renounced the use of force to what it calls ‘retake Taiwan’, it has now changed the emphasis.”