Taiwan is of course a country president says in rebuke to China

TAIPEI – Taiwan is “of course” a country, and China lacks both the historical evidence and legal proof to back up its sovereignty claims, President Lai Ching-te said on June 22 in a strong rebuke to Beijing and its stepped up political and military pressure.

China says democratically governed Taiwan is “sacred” Chinese territory that has belonged to the country since ancient times, and that the island is one of its provinces with no right to be called a state.

Mr Lai and his government strongly reject that view, and have offered to hold talks with China multiple times but have been rejected. China calls Mr Lai a “separatist”.

Giving the first of 10 speeches in a series called “uniting the country”, Mr Lai drew on Taiwan’s history, including the millennia-long connection of its indigenous people to other Austronesians, like native Hawaiians, to show what he said was Taiwan’s separate and distinct development from China.

Taiwan’s people have a record of opposing invasion, like uprisings against Japan’s 1895-1945 colonial rule, and under the last imperial Chinese dynasty, the Qing, Taiwan was considered a Chinese province for only eight years, he added.

“Of course, Taiwan is a country,” he said at a speech to a Taiwan branch of Rotary International, pointing also to its presidential elections. “But China says no, that Taiwan is not a sovereign country.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment outside of office hours.

China says the 1971 United Nations resolution, which took away Taipei’s seat in the body and gave it to Beijing, is one of the legal bases of its claims.

Mr Lai, who in March called China a “hostile foreign force”, said it was “totally wrong” for Beijing to say that the UN resolution had anything to do