<\/p>\n
NEW TAIPEI: Hundreds of thousands of people attended final pre-election rallies in Taiwan on Friday ahead of critical presidential and parliamentary polls that China has warned could take the island closer to war.<\/p>\n
Taiwan, a neighbouring island China claims as its own, is separated by a narrow 180-kilometre strait from China and is a major producer of vital semiconductors.<\/p>\n
Vice President Lai Ching-te, the front-runner candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), paints the election as a choice between \u201cdemocracy and autocracy\u201d \u2014 criticising his main opponent Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT) for being too \u201cpro-China\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I get elected as the president, I will continue to take the path of democracy and peace. I will stand with the international camp of freedom and democracy. What\u2019s more, I will forever stand with Taiwan\u2019s people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nBeijing frames polls as choice between \u2018peace and war\u2019, warns it would \u2018smash plots of independence\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In a stadium nearby, Mr Hou called for his red-and-blue-clad supporters to kick out the DPP, which has been in power for eight years. \u201cThis is a choice between war and peace\u2026 If Lai Ching-te is elected, the Taiwan Strait is very likely to fall into unrest,\u201d said Hou.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t say that we are pro-China,\u201d said supporter Minai at Hou\u2019s final rally. \u201cWe just want the peaceful co-existence of both sides\u2026 I don\u2019t want there to be a war.\u201d<\/p>\n
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has framed the elections as a choice between \u201cpeace and war\u201d, calling the DPP dangerous separatists and urging Taiwanese to make the \u201cright choice\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to Saturday\u2019s election, China repeatedly denounced Mr Lai and rebuffed repeated calls from him for talks.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s defence ministry, responding to a question earlier on Friday on Taiwan\u2019s air force upgrading F-16 fighter jets and buying more from the United States, said even with purchases of US weapons the DPP \u201ccannot stop the trend of complete reunification of the motherland\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army remains on high alert at all times and will take all necessary measures to resolutely crush any form of \u2018Taiwan independence\u2019 separatist plots and firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,\u201d said ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang.<\/p>\n
Mr Lai says he is committed to preserving peace across the Taiwan Strait. The DPP has accused China of seeking to interfere in the vote by spreading disinformation and putting further military and economic pressure on the island. Beijing says election interference allegations are DPP \u201cdirty tricks\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018US must not interfere\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the White House said on Friday that the United States wanted to see free and fair elections in Taiwan and it would be unacceptable for any nation to interfere.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be unacceptable for any other actor, nation, state or otherwise, to interfere with that exercise of democracy,\u201d White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also met a senior Chinese official in Washington on the eve of Taiwan\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n
Blinken, briefly back in Washington in between his latest Middle East crisis tour and a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, opened talks with Liu Jianchao, who heads the international division of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s Central Committee.<\/p>\n
This \u201cinterference\u201d by the United States was criticised by observers in Beijing.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW TAIPEI: Hundreds of thousands of people attended final pre-election rallies in Taiwan on Friday ahead of critical presidential and parliamentary polls that China has warned could take the island closer to war. Taiwan, a neighbouring island China claims as its own, is separated by a narrow 180-kilometre strait from China and is a major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/01\/65a1bb26be213.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}