BEIJING, November 28. /TASS/. Mainland China is ready to create opportunities for peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but will not tolerate separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan independence,’ a Chinese official said.

"I would like to emphasize that 'Taiwan independence' means war," Chen Binhua, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said, commenting on statements by politicians from Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party who claimed that Beijing had "no timetable" for military action against the island.

According to the official, mainland China "will neither tolerate nor show leniency" to the "Taiwan independence" forces if they dare to take risks and provoke incidents promoting "Taiwan independence."

Taiwan has been governed by its own administration since 1949, when the remnants of the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled there after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Since then, Taiwan has retained the flag and some other attributes of the former Republic of China that existed on the mainland before the Communists took power. Official Beijing considers Taiwan a province of the People’s Republic of China.