The Chinese ambassador to ANSA: ‘Great opportunities with Rome’
(by Antonio Fatiguso) The China-US trade truce has strengthened “the confidence of global markets, promoted the security and fluidity of industrial chains”, offering the world, “in a turbulent context, a certain degree of stability and predictability”. Speaking is the Chinese ambassador to Italy Jia Guide, in an interview with ANSA in which he also focused on the five-year economic and development plan outlined by the fourth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the potential of ties between China and Italy. On Taiwan then, the diplomat reiterated, reunification is a fundamental step for the ‘renewal’ of the People’s Republic and “reflects the shared aspiration of everyone in the Chinese nation”.
THE XI-TRUMP EFFECT. After six years, the leaders of China and the USA “successfully held a meeting, retracing the course of relations at a crucial moment” and demonstrating “that the common interests” of the two countries “far outweigh their differences. And that cooperation represents the only correct choice for both sides”. China, Jia says, wants to regulate ties with Washington along the lines advocated by Xi: “Mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation” for “the well-being of more than 1.7 billion people of the two countries” and the interests of more than 8 billion people around the world.
THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN. The ambassador notes that the proposals approved in October by the Fourth Plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee outlined “an ambitious plan for China’s development in the next five years”, with objectives “such as achieving significant results in high-quality development, significantly strengthening autonomy and capacity for scientific and technological innovation”. Looking to the future, China – assures Jia – will offer its trading partners, including Italy, “important opportunities mainly in some areas such as the market, thanks to the expansion of the Chinese middle class and consumer demand and cooperation in scientific and technological innovation”. Beijing shares “broad common interests in the economic and commercial field” with the EU. As for Italy, Jia recalls how the XII session of the Italy-China Intergovernmental Committee was held in Rome in October, with the parties “agreeing on the need to expand trade and cooperation in their respective sectors of excellence and in high-tech areas, sharing development opportunities”.
THE TAIWAN QUESTION. “The realization of full national reunification” is “the common aspiration of everyone in the Chinese nation, as well as an essential element of the great rebirth of the Chinese people”, notes Jia. The Fourth Plenum “underlined that further measures will be taken to deepen exchanges and cooperation between the two sides, jointly promoting the protection and valorization of Chinese culture”. However, this is “China’s internal affair”, he says. And glossing over the validity or otherwise of the military option, Jia notes that “the US can play a role”, respecting “strictly the principle of the ‘One China’ and the three joint China-United States communiqués, ceasing to send wrong signals to the separatist forces for Taiwan’s independence”.
THE BEIJING POINT. Although Taiwan has never been controlled by the People’s Republic, has its own institutional structures and its own currency, the diplomat defines it as “indisputable” that the island has belonged to China since ancient times, as demonstrated by history and law”. In this regard, the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, “all having binding force under international law”, demonstrate “fully – he states – that China has recovered Taiwan both de jure and de facto”. Then in 1971 – recalls the ambassador – the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 2758 and “explicitly recognized the representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China at the United Nations. The logical premise of the resolution is that ‘Taiwan belongs to China’.”
THE ‘1992 CONSENSUS’. In 1992, the ambassador recalls, the CCP and the Taiwanese nationalists of the Kuomingtang (KMT) “reached a consensus according to which each party expressed its commitment to respecting the principle of one China. Between 2008 and 2016, economic and commercial exchanges between the two shores exceeded 100 billion dollars”. However, William Lai Ching-te, the president of Taiwan and leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), “calls himself a ‘pragmatic Taiwanese independence worker'”, accuses Jia, according to whom the DPP “stubbornly maintains a separatist position of independence”, denies the ‘1992 Consensus’ and seeks “deliberately to undermine the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by attempting to separate the Taiwan region from China”.
On the common political basis of respect for the ‘1992 Consensus’ and the rejection of independence – concludes Beijing’s ambassador to Rome – China “is willing to collaborate with all political parties, organizations and citizens of Taiwan”, including the KMT, whose leader Cheng Wenli took office on November 1st. “In his response to President Xi Jinping’s congratulatory message, Cheng said he will continue to abide by the ‘1992 Consensus’.”
