Liar's speeches reflect separatists' desperation: China Daily editorial

Starting June 22, Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te has been on a speaking tour across the Chinese island. Delivering the third installment of his "10 lectures on unity" in Hsinchu on Sunday, Lai focused on the so-called constitutional system. Yet the gist of his speech was still spreading the fallacy that Taiwan has never been part of China, and once again perpetuating his narrative of conflict and division across the Taiwan Strait.

With hackneyed and stereotyped expressions, his speech was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to promote the notion of "Taiwan independence". Camouflaged as a legal discourse, it was a call to arms for separatism, espousing the hidden agenda of drumming up support for his "mass recall" campaign.

Dismissing the historical realities that firmly establish Taiwan as an integral part of China, Lai falsely presented the island as having its own "constitutional" system in a vain attempt to legitimize his vision of Taiwan having a "separate national identity". His manipulation and distortion of legal frameworks to advance his separatist agenda lacks any substantive historical or legal basis and is merely a political maneuver to sow discord and division within Taiwan society.

It is not surprising to hear such misleading and provocative remarks from the die-hard Taiwan separatist. Yet the picked-up pace at which Lai is pushing for the island's secession from the motherland suggests he knows he is pursuing a lost cause as the momentum for national reunification is unstoppable.

Public dissatisfaction with Lai's "leadership" continues to grow, with many condemning his lectures as a charade that exposes him as a troublemaker and danger-maker that poses the biggest threat to cross-Strait peace and stability. His displayed hubris highlights his Democratic Progressive Party's arrogance and divisiveness. What Lai is doing is reducing the space for a peaceful reunification.

In an earlier speech, Lai brazenly distorted history by using the Treaty of San Francisco to falsely claim that Taiwan has never belonged to China. Yet the Cairo Declaration issued on Dec 1, 1943, stated that all the territories Japan had seized from China, such as Northeast China, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, should be restored to China.

This commitment was reaffirmed in the subsequent Potsdam Proclamation on July 26, 1945, which stated that "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out".

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender of Sept 2, 1945, under which Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers, also states Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation. The three documents expose the lies fabricated by Lai as they are effective and legally binding treaties recognizing Taiwan as part of China.

In his speech on Sunday, Lai again tried to fan antagonistic sentiment against the Chinese mainland by claiming that it has been deploying aircraft and warships around the island. Yet what he failed to mention is that the strengthened military training and combat preparedness of the People's Liberation Army is targeted at the intensified separatist acts of "Taiwan independence" rather than Taiwan compatriots, and it is aimed at preparedness to thwart Taiwan separatists' attempts to solicit external military support for their agenda.

As long as Lai's DPP authorities continue with its secessionist pushes and provocations, the PLA's operations to safeguard China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity will continue unabated. No matter how many speeches Lai makes to promote his "Taiwan independence" fallacy, and what tricks he uses to resist the reunification of Taiwan with the motherland, he will never change Taiwan's legal status as an inseparable part of China, or the fact and status quo that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.

Rather than uniting Taiwan society, as Lai claims is his intention, his ongoing speaking tour actually reflects the growing desperation of Taiwan separatists who have recognized that the space for their scheme to push for "Taiwan independence" is being resolutely squeezed smaller and smaller. This was evidenced by Lai's call on Sunday for Taiwan residents to "stand up for the nation's safety", which served to show his vicious intent to turn the 23 million people on the island into cannon fodder for his separatist cause. This will be the outcome of the separatists' plans to seek "independence" through external support, a scheme that is doomed to failure.

Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China's national reunification is a shared aspiration of all the people of the Chinese nation, and no one can stop the historical trend toward the reunification of Taiwan with the motherland.