China's Xi says Taiwan 'reunification' must happen as history cannot be stopped

Chinese President Xi Jinping used the 160th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen's birth to declare that Taiwan's reunification with the mainland is an unstoppable historical tide, delivering the message from Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday. Xi framed the goal as the Communist Party's "unwavering historical mission" and reiterated the offer of a "one country, two systems" framework, while pointedly avoiding any mention of force. The rhetoric was familiar, but the timing carried layered significance: the speech came exactly one week before Xi is scheduled to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the APEC summit in Shenzhen, and less than three weeks before Taiwan's local elections, where cross-strait policy remains a defining fault line.

Taipei's response was dismissive. Mainland Affairs Council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh said the wording "isn't much different from the past" and reiterated that neither the government nor the public would accept a model that ultimately means submitting to Communist Party rule. No major Taiwanese party supports the Hong Kong-style autonomy formula, and President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party has been emphasizing Taiwan's separate identity while also adopting a tougher rhetorical stance on the Republic of China's legacy — a direct counter to Beijing's attempt to co-opt Sun Yat-sen as a unification hero.

While Xi spoke of peaceful development, the military reality on the ground contradicted the diplomatic tone. Taiwan's defence ministry reported detecting 29 Chinese military aircraft — including J-16 fighters and drones — conducting a "joint combat readiness patrol" around the island in coordination with Chinese warships, beginning the same day as the speech. The People's Liberation Army has normalized daily operations around Taiwan and is extending its reach deeper into the Pacific, a pattern that has continued regardless of whether Beijing's public rhetoric escalates or softens. China has never formally renounced the use of force to achieve unification.

The Sun Yat-sen commemoration itself is a contested symbolic battlefield. Beijing hails Sun as a "great pioneer of China's democratic revolution" and the forerunner of the 1949 communist victory that drove the Republic of China government to Taiwan. In Taipei, Sun remains officially the "father of the nation," his portrait hanging in the presidential office, though his "Three Principles of the People" is no longer required reading for schoolchildren. Last month, Taiwan urged its citizens to avoid Chinese commemorative events, accusing Beijing of distorting Sun's legacy. Xi's invocation of Sun's opposition to splitting the country was a deliberate attempt to anchor the CCP's unification narrative in a figure both sides claim, even as their interpretations of his legacy diverge sharply.