Beijing's message for young Taiwanese: We mean business
Last Tuesday morning, as President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the closing of China’s annual legislative session in Beijing, Wen Liwei was at work in this coastal city 1,000 miles away. He was too busy meeting with business partners – discussing market strategies for his health food company – to pay it any attention. Besides, his office doesn’t have a television.
Had Mr. Wen watched the address, he would have heard Mr. Xi issue a thinly veiled threat against his homeland, Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing views as a breakaway province. “Any actions and tricks to split China are doomed to failure,” Xi said before the nearly 3,000 members of the National People's Congress, adding that any such attempts “will meet with the people’s condemnation and the punishment of history.”
It was a stern warning at a fraught time for Taiwan. Relations with China have been tense since 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party was elected president. Yet they’ve become especially hostile in recent weeks because
Mainland appealBrain drain