In its first major policy statement on Taiwan since 1993, Beijing warned yesterday that China would be forced to use "drastic measures, including military force" if Taiwan indefinitely delayed negotiations aimed at reuniting with the mainland.
The ultimatum came in a policy White Paper issued yesterday in Beijing by the State Council, China's cabinet. Taiwan expected some intervention by China during its 28-day presidential election campaign, which began on Sunday, but few here in the capital, Taipei, predicted a stark ultimatum to Taiwan's leaders to start talking about reunification or face military invasion.
Previously, China had threatened armed action only if Taiwan declared independence or in the event of foreign invasion of the island, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province. The new policy significantly raises the ante in the 50-year confrontation between China and Taiwan and will increase tension in the Taiwan Strait and in US-China relations.
Commentators in Taipei said last night the threat appeared designed to put strong pressure on candidates and voters to turn away from notions of independence in the March 18th elections to choose a successor to Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui of the ruling Nationalist Party.
The three leading candidates in the election have in fact been taking care not to antagonise Beijing, and on Sunday, Taiwan's military cancelled a scheduled test of anti-ballistic missiles in a friendly gesture to China and to "avoid misunderstandings". In 1996, China fired M9 missiles into the sea near Taiwan two weeks before the first direct presidential election to deter any declaration of independence and in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade voters not to back President Lee.
Mr Lee, who is retiring, has in his 12 years in office nudged Taiwan towards independence and he infuriated Beijing last year by describing their relationship as being on a state-to-state basis.
This time the intervention appears aimed at Mr Chen Shuibian, the candidate of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, which openly espouses independence. But Mr Chen says that while he wants to maintain "aggressive defence, effective deterrence", he wishes to build trust and co-operation with the mainland, and he has not taken the state-to-state rhetoric further.
An opinion poll published in Taipei yesterday showed Mr Chen just ahead of Mr Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party and an independent, Mr James Soong, who is considered to be Beijing's favoured candidate. A fringe Independent candidate, Mr Hsu Hsin-liang, said that Mr Chen was "dangerous" as he would antagonise Beijing.
Mr Lien has called for closer ties with China, including direct trade, regular summits and a "hot line" between Taipei and Beijing, but China wants reconciliation talks to move beyond practical measures such as fishing rights and the repatriation of hijackers and to recognise the principle of One China. Taipei has banned direct official contacts with China since the Nationalists lost a civil war to the Communists on the mainland and fled to Taiwan in 1949.
Beijing has been showing increasing frustration at Taiwan's refusal to consider its offer of "one country - two systems", the formula under which Hong Kong returned to the motherland in 1997. While Beijing does not have the military resources to invade Taiwan, it is acquiring more sophisticated weaponry.
The 11,000-word White Paper said Taiwan's insistence that China embrace Western-style democracy as a condition for reunification was an "excuse" for delay. "If the Taiwan authorities indefinitely refuse to peacefully settle the reunification issue through dialogue, the Chinese government will be forced to adopt all possible drastic measures, including military force," it said. "Facts prove that a serious crisis still exists in the situation of the Taiwan Straits. Any splittist scheme is doomed to failure."