China OKs Law Aimed at Taiwan

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said today that a controversial antisecession law on Taiwan passed by the nation’s legislature was a necessary measure to preserve stability, not a “war bill.”

“Only by checking and opposing Taiwan independence forces will we have peace in the Taiwan Strait,” he said at a news conference.

Wen’s comments followed a warning by President Hu Jintao on Sunday that China’s 2.5-million strong army should be ready for war.

“We shall step up preparations for possible military struggle and enhance our capabilities to cope with crises, safeguard peace, prevent wars and win the wars if any,” the official New China News Agency quoted Hu as saying.

China and Taiwan split in a 1949 civil war, but Beijing still views the island as a rightful part of its territory. The United States, which has pledged to defend the self-governing island in the event of attack, sees the new law as a threat to the uneasy status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

“Clearly [the law] raises tensions,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have said to both parties that it is not helpful to have unilateral steps that raise tensions.”

Taiwanese Cabinet spokesman Cho Jung-tai echoed Rice’s concerns, saying the measure had “caused resentment in Taiwan and opposition in the international community. China has to bear the responsibility and pay a price for this law.”

But Wen countered today that China’s new law was not aimed at upsetting the status quo, which he defined as a single, unified China.

He said Beijing had no complaint with the island’s million people or its million businessmen living on the mainland.

He compared the new measure to U.S. statutes passed in 1861 aimed at holding the United States together. “Civil war broke out soon after,” he added. “We don’t want to see such a split.”

China’s leaders rarely meet the media, and many of the 700 local journalists at Wen’s news conference greeted him with sympathetic questions and applause.

Chinese analysts also gave him high marks.

“This law will improve the situation,” said Li Jiaquan, a Taiwan scholar. “Taiwan’s independence forces are a cancer cell in cross-Strait relations.”

Turning to the economy, the prime minister’s primary area of responsibility, Wen said China had achieved “remarkable results” in the last few years, avoiding excessive price increases and enacting reforms while maintaining 9.5% growth in 2004. But, he said, “we must not slacken our efforts in the slightest way.”

Despite growing instability in recent years as local officials and well-connected developers have pushed more of the nation’s 800 million farmers off their land, Wen said China had no immediate plans to allow private land ownership or extended-use rights of farmland.

The prime minister called for continued economic reforms covering social security, the legal system, rural taxation and the stock market.