Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Tuesday that aggression will inevitably fail, pointing, on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing, to the lessons from World War Two and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958.
Democratically governed Taiwan has over the past five years, repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity, including war games around the island, as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims the government in Taipei rejects.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, will oversee a large-scale military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Speaking to officers at the defence ministry, Lai noted that Tuesday marked the 67th anniversary of a 1958 naval battle that Taiwan celebrates as a victory that was part of the August 23 Chinese attack on the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, better known internationally as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.
Taiwan’s victories then show that true peace stems from a resolve to unite against aggression, he added.
“We all know that the current security environment is more severe than ever before. In recent years, the Chinese communists have persistently conducted high-intensity activities with military aircraft and vessels around the Taiwan Strait,” Lai said.
“From the victory in World War Two to the glorious achievements of the September 2nd naval battle and the August 23rd artillery exchange, the most valuable lesson remains: unity ensures victory, while aggression inevitably fails.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lai’s remarks. China considers Lai a “separatist” and has rebuffed multiple offers of talks.
China and Taiwan have both been engaged in an increasingly tense exchange of accusations about the World War Two anniversary and its broader historical meaning.
Taiwan has told its people not to attend Beijing’s parade, to China’s anger.
The most high-profile person from Taiwan attending is Hung Hsiu-chu, a former chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT).
The KMT and the Republic of China government it ran fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.
The two had an uneasy alliance against Japan in World War Two and the Japanese invasion of China that preceded that, though much of the fighting was done by republican forces, historians generally agree.
Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name.
