Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday.
Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.”
“I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said.
Photo: AFP
Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity.
If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel the same way.
Mia Wei, a 26-year-old marketing specialist from Shanghai, told al-Jazeera that “ordinary Chinese people are not pushing the government to get unification.”
“It is the government that pushes people to believe that there must be unification,” she was quoted as saying, adding that she believes that most Chinese are more concerned with the country’s domestic issues.
“First there was COVID, then the economy got bad and then the housing market got even worse,” she said. “I think Chinese people have their minds on more important things than unification with Taiwan.”
Al-Jazeera cited a study released last year by the University of California, San Diego’s 21st Century China Center that showed that “launching a full-scale war to achieve unification was viewed as unacceptable by a third of the Chinese respondents.”
“Only 1 percent rejected all other options but war, challenging the Chinese government’s assertion that the Chinese people were willing to ‘go to any length and pay any price’ to achieve unification,” al-Jazeera cited the report as saying.
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