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Xi Jinping told Biden in November that he seeks reunification with Taiwan — TV channel

The Chinese leader also pointed out to Joe Biden that the US was influencing the participants in the election for the island's chief executive, which will be held in January 2024

NEW YORK, December 20. /TASS/. Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told his US counterpart Joe Biden at the November summit in San Francisco that Beijing would reunify Taiwan with mainland China, the NBC TV reported, citing sources.

According to the channel’s information, the Chinese president did not specify the exact time frame in which China expects to implement the plan, but noted that "China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force."

According to US officials with knowledge of the November summit between the two leaders, Xi Jinping was "blunt and candid, but not confrontational."

The Chinese leader also pointed out to Biden that the US was influencing the participants in the election for the island's chief executive, which will be held in January 2024.

The post has been held since 2016 by the head of the Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected for a second and final four-year term in 2020. After coming to power, she refused to recognize the ‘one-China’ principle and reversed the Kuomintang’s long-standing policy of gradual rapprochement with mainland China: as a result, relations between Beijing and Taipei quickly began to deteriorate.

The favorite in the race is the incumbent vice president of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Lai Ching·te, who is leading in opinion polls. The two opposition candidates are Ko Wen-je, chairman of the centrist Taiwan People's Party, and Hou You-ih, a politician from the pro-alignment Kuomintang, which favors rapprochement with mainland China.

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.

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China United States Taiwan

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