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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Guardian staff and agencies in Taipei

Communist China not the motherland, says Taiwan’s president, because our republic is older

Lai Ching-te, the Taiwanese president.
Lai Ching-te, the Taiwanese president. Photograph: Ann Wang/Reuters

It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.

Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.

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