- Title: China president says country wants peaceful reunification with Taiwan
- Date: 9th October 2021
- Summary: XI AND OTHER CHINESE LEADERS STANDING AND WALKING OFF STAGE
- Embargoed: 23rd October 2021 08:45
- Keywords: Chinese President Chinese military Cross strait relations PLA Taiwan Taiwan strait Xi Xi Jinping reunification
- Location: BEIJING, CHINA
- City: BEIJING, CHINA
- Country: China
- Topics: Asia / Pacific,Defence,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA003EYFQQMF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday (October 9) to realise peaceful "reunification" with Taiwan after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.
Democratically ruled Taiwan has come under increased military and political pressure from Beijing to accept its sovereignty, but Taipei has pledged to defend their freedom and that only Taiwan's people can decide their future.
"National reunification by peaceful means best serves the interests of the Chinese nation as a whole which includes our compatriots in Taiwan," Xi said at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the last imperial dynasty in 1911.
Taiwan says it is an independent country called the Republic of China, its formal name.
The Republic of China was established in 1912 and its government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists, who set up today's People's Republic of China.
(Production: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Martin Pollard) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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