President Tsai Ing-wen’s proposal, made on anniversary of Tiananmen, was rejected amid claims the values and ideas advanced by the president’s party have caused chaos on the island.
Taipei (AsiaNews) – Beijing has rejected the offer of political reform made by President Tsai Ing-wen on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square repression of Democrats in 1989.
Beijing today rejected Tsai Ing-wen's proposal, aimed at "helping the continental transition to democracy," saying that the values and ideas advanced by the party have caused chaos on the island.
The Chinese Business Commission for Taiwan has stated that only the mainland Chinese has the right to speak of their problems and that Tsai may spend her time better reflecting on "dissatisfied discontent" in Taiwan and "on the reasons why relations on both sides of the Strait are in a free fall. "
Beijing looks suspiciously with Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party government because it traditionally calls for Taiwan's independence, while Beijing claims that the island is part of China and has not excluded the use of force to bring it back under control. "We are closer than ever in history to the goal of the great renewal of the Chinese people," said Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang, and "[the Taiwan authorities] should not divert attention and or relinquish their responsibility while continuing to fan antagonism ".
On Sunday, on the 28th anniversary of the violent repression of student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Tsai said that the greatest distance between Taiwan and mainland China is democracy and freedom, provoking Beijing at a time when relations are at a low point. "For Democracy: Some are early, others are late, but in the end we all arrive," Tsai told social media. "By learning from Taiwan's experience, I believe that China can reduce the dangers of democratic reform."
After nearly 40 years of martial law imposed on Taiwan by the Nationalists, since the late 1980s the island began its transition to democracy, with presidential elections since 1996.