BEIJING — An army general has warned that China will not leave the Taiwan problem “unresolved for a long time,” after the island’s Beijing-friendly ruling party suffered a bruising election defeat, a state-run newspaper said.
Liu Jingsong told the annual conference of the Global Times newspaper that the Chinese government would not be afraid to use force to resolve “the Taiwan issue,” the Chinese-language paper reported Saturday on its website without specifying further.
“The Taiwan issue will not remain unresolved for a long time. We will not abandon the possibility of using force; according to the law, it is also an option to resolve the issue by military means if necessary,” said Liu, a former president of the influential Chinese Academy of Military Sciences.
He retired from active service with the People’s Liberation Army in 1997.
“Whoever has political power in Taiwan, the only path (for the island) is to preserve the development of peaceful relations between the two sides of the strait, and eventually to bring about reunification,” the general said.
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