China warns Taiwan ‘extremists’

CHINA said yesterday that hard-liners in Taiwan were playing a deceitful and dangerous game by seeking independence, and appealed to the United States to oppose those seeking to split the island from the mainland.

"At present, the extremist splittists on the island of Taiwan participating in Taiwan independence activities in the name of human rights and democracy are very deceiving and dangerous," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.

Mr Liu's comments came just days ahead of a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to the United States and one day after Washington called on Taiwan to do nothing to change its status and provoke China.

Lawmakers on the island last week passed a bill allowing for referendums but dropped sections providing for votes on independence or on changing Taiwan's flag or official name the Republic of China. "We hope the US side can adhere to its commitments (and) clearly oppose all kinds of provocative activities made by the Taiwan authorities intent on splitting China," Mr Liu said.

China, ideological foe of Taiwan since the end of the civil war in 1949, considers the island a breakaway province which must be reunified with the mainland eventually - by force if needed. The official China Daily said the watered-down referendum bill "saved the island an immediate showdown," but added it had "sowed new seeds of uncertainty."

At a campaign rally over the weekend, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian said he aimed to hold a referendum on the island's sovereignty alongside presidential elections in March by invoking a clause in the bill saying a "defensive referendum" can be held in the event of a foreign attack. Mr Chen argued that China is a threat to Taiwan because it has 496 ballistic missiles pointed at the island. Opposition parties say that is not sufficient reason to invoke the defensive referendum.

"From the endorsement of the 'defensive referendum' alone, the referendum bill has opened a Pandora's box which promises unfathomable destructive potentials," the China Daily said. Zhu Weidong, assistant director and research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan Studies, part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences think tank, said Taiwan would top the agenda when Mr Wen visits the United States.

"Taiwan has avoided an incident that touches off a war, but the crisis has not been entirely eliminated," Mr Zhu said. "The United States is fully aware of the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue. It has tried to persuade Taiwan, exerting lots of pressure on Taiwan."

The US, Taiwan's biggest ally and arms supplier but a backer of Beijing's "one-China" policy, urged Chen to stick to the pledge not to change the status of the island and to drop moves to hold a sovereignty referendum.