Beijing - China's official media appeared to tone down a threat of war against Taiwan made by its most senior envoy to the island yesterday.
A statement carried by the Xinhua news agency quoted Mr Tang Shubei, vice chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, as threatening Taiwan with "disaster" if it did not accept Beijing's "one China principle" or failed to recognise Taiwan as part of China.
The agency quoted Mr Tang as saying that failure to accept the principle that Taiwan was part of China would "lead to disaster instead of peace, confrontation instead of harmony, and hostility instead of goodwill."
Earlier the agency quoted Mr Tang as saying there were people in Taiwan "who have said mitigating words such as peace, goodwill and harmony. . . But if they don't accept the `one China' principle and that Taiwan is a part of China then the result will not be peace, but war; not harmony but confrontation; not goodwill but enmity."