Beijing official calls for 'joint answer' on Taiwan Strait peace

Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait needs a “joint answer” from people on both sides, Beijing’s top Taiwan affairs official said on Saturday.

“As profound changes unseen in a century accelerate across the world, the international landscape is becoming increasingly turbulent and complex, the situation in the Taiwan Strait remains complex and severe,” Wang Huning told the Straits Forum, an annual event designed to boost exchanges between Taiwan and mainland China.

“The future direction of cross-strait relations, whether peace and stability can be maintained in the Taiwan Strait, and whether people on both sides of the strait can create a better future together are questions of the time that require a joint answer from people across all sectors on both sides.”

Tensions between mainland China and Taiwan have been running high since William Lai Ching-te, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, took office in May 2024.

The DPP, which has long seen the forum as a platform for creating divisions in Taiwan, has explicitly forbidden Taiwan’s municipal and county government officials from taking part, upgrading previous advisories into an outright ban.

More senior government officials were already prohibited from attending the event, which Beijing has used to promote cultural and economic exchanges between the two sides.

But Wang, the Communist Party’s fourth-ranking official, said the “enthusiastic participation” of large numbers of people from Taiwan “despite various obstacles,” showed that maintaining peace and prosperity was a shared aspiration of people on both sides of the Strait.