BEIJING, Oct. 17 -- "The Chinese PLA has always been a powerful and invincible force in safeguarding the national reunification. It will continue to enhance its combat capabilities in countering separatist activities and foreign interference, and take resolute measures to safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity and cross-Strait peace and stability," said Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense (MND), at a press briefing on Friday.
The spokesperson made the remarks when asked to comment on Lai Ching-te's so-called "Double Ten" speech, in which Lai clamored for increasing defense budget, establishing "T-Dome" air defense system and building "whole-of-society defense resilience", and claimed that peace was won through strength. In his relevant remarks, Lai Ching-te distorted the historical facts and international jurisprudence, and peddled the same old separatist narrative for "Taiwan independence".
The defense spokesperson noted that Lai used his whole bag of tricks to pander to the foreign power, deceive the people in Taiwan, and provoke cross-Strait confrontation, which exposes his malicious intention of selling out and ruining Taiwan and constitutes another evidence that Lai is the real trouble-maker and saboteur of peace.
In disregard of the well-being of the people in Taiwan, the DPP authorities keep running headlong down the wrong path of seeking independence by force, and try to embolden themselves with the "T-Dome", which is just a castle in the air. Their behaviors are pushing Taiwan closer to the brink of war, and they are the ones who disrupt peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, said the spokesperson.
"We warn the DPP authorities that soliciting foreign support for independence is doomed to failure and resisting reunification by force is a dead end," stressed the spokesperson.