Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te questions China’s territorial claims to the island, suggesting Beijing’s real motives are not related to territorial integrity.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te recently disputed China’s claims to the island, saying that if Beijing’s concern was truly territorial integrity, then it should also reclaim territories ceded to Russia in the 19th century, Reuters reports.
In an interview with Taiwanese television, Lai brought up the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, which ceded a vast region in present-day Russia’s far east to the declining Qing dynasty.
The Chinese authorities did not try to recover the lost territories
Lai said China’s intentions to attack and annex Taiwan would not be related to territorial integrity, as Beijing claims, but for other political reasons.
He also said that the Chinese authorities have never tried to recover the lost territories, despite the fact that Russia is currently in a position of relative weakness.
China’s real reasons for annexing Taiwan
He also added that the Treaty of Aigun, signed during the Qing Dynasty, was not initially ratified, but was later confirmed by the Peking Convention of 1860, a treaty that China considers one of the “unequal treaties” imposed by the powers foreigners in the 19th century.
Lai also said that China’s real reasons for annexing Taiwan would not be related to territory, as Beijing claims, but to other hidden interests.
Chinese authorities have not commented on Lai’s claims.
Source: www.descopera.ro
