BEIJING: President Xi Jinping has said that no one can ever stop Taiwan’s reunification with China as he signed off 2024 amid growing anxieties in the country over the continued slowdown of the economy and the return of Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose punitive tariffs and trade measures against Beijing in his second term.
“We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same family. No one can ever sever the bond of kinship between us,” Xi said while delivering his 2025 New Year Address televised on the state broadcaster. China claims the self-ruled island Taiwan as part of its mainland and makes ‘One-China’, recognising Taiwan as part of it, as a mandatory diplomatic policy.
In recent years, Xi, who is in his third five-year term, made it a major military and diplomatic initiative to step up efforts to reintegrate Taiwan with China. On the foreign policy front, Xi reiterated China’s commitment to promoting global governance reform and contributing to the maintenance of world peace and stability.
“In a world of both transformation and turbulence, China, as a responsible major country, is actively promoting global governance reform and deepening solidarity and cooperation among the Global South,” he added. The other main focus of Xi’s New Year message was to reassure the Chinese public about the economy, which has slowed considerably after COVID-19, resulting in the collapse of the lucrative real estate sector and job losses due to the closure of businesses across the country.
China’s economy has rebounded and is on an upward trajectory, with GDP expected to cross the 130-trillion-yuan (about USD 18.08 trillion) mark in 2024.
The grain output has surpassed 700 million tonnes, he said. The country has proactively responded to the impacts of the changing environment at home and abroad, and has adopted a full range of policies to make solid gains in pursuing high-quality development in the past year, he said.
Highlighting China’s success in the new productive forces like E-Vehicles, he said the country has fostered new quality productive forces in light of actual conditions and has seen new business sectors, forms and models emerging. China’s annual production of new energy vehicles has topped 10 million for the first time in 2024, and the country has made breakthroughs in integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, quantum communications and many other fields, Xi said.
China, however, is struggling to enhance its exports of e-vehicles as the US and EU have imposed heavy tariffs on their imports. The main challenge for Xi, however, is to deal with Trump 2-0. Trump, who has threatened to pursue tough policies against China, will assume the US presidency on January 20. In his first term, Trump launched a trade war against China by imposing tariffs on over USD 380 billion on Chinese imports in 2018-19, saying that China is ripping off America. His successor, Joe Biden, has continued the tariffs, denting China’s profits.
During his campaign, Trump threatened to impose over 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports, which last year accounted for USD 427.2 billion. The China-US relations became tense over a host of policies pursued by Trump, including blocking Chinese tech. He also blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the virus emanated from a bio-lab in Wuhan. The military relations between the two countries also remained tense under Trump’s previous presidency.
