"Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and has never been a country," an unnamed official with the ruling Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office said. "We firmly oppose any 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities in any form."

The comments were posted on the Chinese government Web site and printed in many state-run newspapers on Tuesday, highlighting the sensitivity of the issue.

While the resolution, which passed Sunday after heated debate, will likely ratchet up tensions between the rivals, its contents also appear to be carefully worded so as to not provoke Beijing into responding militarily.

The two sides split during civil war in 1949, but the mainland still considers the democratic island part of its territory, and has threatened to attack if it moves toward formal independence.

Sunday's resolution by the Democratic Progressive Party calls for enacting a new constitution and holding a referendum on Taiwan's sovereignty and changing the island's name, though it did specify a new name.

The DPP believes that Taiwan's formal name of the "Republic of China" implies support for unification with China - a demand of Beijing's that the party rejects. While the resolution did not spell it out, the DPP has pushed for use of the name "Taiwan" instead of the Republic of China.

The Chinese official said he hoped that "DPP members recognize the trend of future development of cross-Strait relations ... and prevent the risky separatists from pushing the Taiwan people into a disaster."

The resolution is the latest in a series of steps taken in the waning months of President Chen Shui-bian's final term aimed at strengthening Taiwan's de facto independence.

His campaign this year to try to get the island to rejoin the United Nations under the name of Taiwan for the first time has been unsuccessful. For the past decade it had tried without success to rejoin the world body as the Republic of China, the name it used in the U.N. before being expelled in 1971.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email