Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has said the island was not ready to discuss unification with China, sending a firm message to an increasingly assertive Beijing eager to absorb what it considers a renegade province.
Mr Ma said although the economic and social gaps between the proudly democratic island and its giant Communist neighbour were narrowing, their political differences remained wide.
"The political situation between the two sides is still very different," said Mr Ma, speaking on the day China was celebrating its National Day. "I think to discuss matters, such as unification, is not very suitable. Taiwan is not ready."
Although his eight-year presidency has been characterised by warming business ties with China, Mr Ma, 65, ho steps down next year due to term limits, repeated how "the time was not yet ripe" for unification talks between the once bitter enemies.
His comments underscore how far Taiwan has moved from embracing China following massive protests on the island last year against a cross-strait trade pact and the weakening of Mr Ma's pro-China Nationalist party.
China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war to the Communists.
Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring the island of 23 million people back under its control, particularly if it were to make moves towards formal independence.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article