After a week of tensions between China and Taiwan, China’s president, Xi Jinping, has vowed to realise “reunification” with Taiwan, without mentioning the use of force. 

Democratically run Taiwan is being pressured to accept Beijing’s sovereignty. Despite all the military and political pressure, Taiwan insists it is an independent country, using its formal name: the Republic of China.

Speaking at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Saturday, Xi said, “Taiwan’s independence separatism is the biggest obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland, and the most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation,” he said on the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew China’s last imperial dynasty in 1911.

“The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and will definitely be fulfilled.”

China’s air force invaded Taiwan’s air defence zone from October 1 with close to 150 aircraft.

While many are of the opinion that war is not imminent, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen warned a lot could be at stake. 

“If Taiwan were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic for regional peace and the democratic alliance system,” she wrote in an op-ed in Foreign Affairs magazine recently. “It would signal that in today’s global contest of values, authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy.”

“Perhaps more significant than the number of planes was the constitution of the group, with fighters, bombers and airborne early warning aircraft,” said Euan Graham, a defense analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

“That’s the level of sophistication — it looks like a strike package, and that’s part of the step up in pressure,” he said. “This is not a couple of fighters coming close and then going straight back after putting one wing across the median; this is a much more purposeful maneuver,” he added.