China should not invade Taiwan in the short term because of the domestic challenges facing Beijing, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said in an interview broadcast at the DealBook Summit conference in New York on Wednesday.
“I think Chinese leaders are overwhelmed by their internal challenges right now,” Ms. Tsai said in that recorded interview.
“I think now may not be the time to think about a major invasion of Taiwan,” she added.
“I must first correct a mistake: Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, (therefore) there is no president of Taiwan,” commented Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, when asked during a press conference on Thursday.
The speaker then criticized the “obstinacy” of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which he said supported the island’s independence.
China views Taiwan as a province that has not yet succeeded in reunification with the rest of its territory since the end of the civil war in 1949.
Beijing, which has not given up its violent conquest of the island, has exerted strong military and economic pressure on Taiwan since the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016.
Tsai Ing-wen’s comments come two weeks after a meeting between the American and Chinese presidents in San Francisco on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
The Chinese president then told Joe Biden that reunification of the autonomous island, which receives military support from the United States, was “inevitable.”
But for Taiwan’s president, China is struggling with economic, financial and political turmoil, which she says removes the specter of invasion.
But Beijing is still trying to interfere in Taiwan’s presidential election in January, Tsai Ing-wen said.
“Similar influence efforts by China have occurred in every major election in Taiwan since 1996,” she said, citing the use of military threats and economic pressure.
Taiwan’s presidential election, to be held in January, will be closely watched in both Beijing and Washington as its outcome could determine the future of relations between the island and China.
Taiwan is a major player in the production of semiconductors, important components for the global economy.