Taiwan president formally designates China a foreign hostile force

TAIPEI – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te labelled China a “foreign hostile force” for the first time as he unveiled wide-ranging measures to counter infiltration efforts, drawing an immediate rebuke from Beijing.

“China is already a foreign hostile force as defined in our Anti-Infiltration Act,” Mr Lai said in a briefing in Taipei on March 13, referring to a Taiwan law passed in 2019 detailing the punishment for people working with hostile entities. He spoke hours before the 20th anniversary of a Chinese anti-secession law authorising an attack on Taiwan if it declares independence.

Mr Lai’s use of the term may help justify measures he laid out to counter Chinese influence and espionage efforts, which include the potential resumption of military trials for soldiers accused of treason or spying.

While the formal designation will not necessarily lead to an immediate escalation of cross-strait tensions, Mr Lai is taking a tougher stance on Beijing than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen, who was also from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The comments “only prove that Lai is a saboteur of cross-strait peace, and the creator of the Taiwan crisis”, Mr Chen Binhua, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a statement late on March 13. “If the separatist forces dare to cross the red line, resolute actions will be taken in response.”

China claims the self-governing democracy as its territory and has vowed to unify with Taiwan, using force if necessary. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on March 7 again declared the island an “inalienable part” of China’s territory.

“This is the history and the reality,” Mr Wang said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. “Taiwan is never a country, not in the past, and never in the future,” he said. “To connive at ‘Taiwan