Firmer, less peaceful language on Taiwan reunification

It was less than two days into 2024 when Song Tao, the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, called on all Taiwanese to promote “peaceful reunification” with the mainland.

But down in the text, the New Year’s message posted to the office’s website had not-so-subtle wording, as Song warned “the motherland will eventually be reunified, and it will inevitably be reunified.”

The message came less than two weeks before Taiwan held its presidential and parliamentary elections and coincided with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s message that reunification was an all but foregone conclusion.

The thin rhetorical veneer of peaceful reunification has been gradually but significantly replaced with language that is more crisp in “advancing the cause of reunification.”

This week, upon releasing budget figures at the opening of the National People’s Congress, Premier Li Qiang dropped mention of “peaceful reunification” in his government report, according to a Reuters analysis of his speech.

Li reiterated China’s call for “reunification” with Taiwan but added emphasis that it wants to “be firm” in doing so and dropped the descriptor “peaceful”, which had been used in previous reports, Reuters noted.

To be sure, it was not the first time a top Chinese official had omitted the word “peaceful” when referring to Taiwan “reunification.” The firmer language has been repeatedly used by Chinese state officials and has been a mainstay in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) speeches, including in Xi’s speech before the 20th Party Congress in October 2022.

In the president’s words then, he and his countrymen “firmly” grasp “the leading position and initiative in cross-Strait relations, and unswervingly promote the great cause of the reunification of