China “hopes and believes” Germany will support peaceful Taiwan ‘reunification’

China’s “hopes and believes” Germany will support China’s “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi told Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock in Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

China once supported German reunification and hopes Germany will support China’s “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, Wang, director of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC), told Baerbock.

China claims democratically-run Taiwan as a breakaway region and has not ruled out using force to merge the island with mainland. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government rejects China’s position on “reunification”, saying only the Taiwanese can decide their future.

“The ‘Taiwan independence’ forces on the island are plotting to undermine the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and endanger peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Wang said, according to the ministry statement.

“To maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait, we must resolutely oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities. China has supported Germany’s reunification and hopes and believes that Germany will also support China’s peaceful reunification,” he told Baerbock.

Wang added that China is willing to strengthen communication with Germany.

Baerbock had warned after a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, on Friday that “a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, through which 50% of world trade flows every day, would be a horror scenario for the entire world.”

“The shockwave of such a world economic crisis would also hit China and Germany as special trading nations,” she said, according to the EFE news agency.

Only last month, Beijing described as “vile”, German education minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger’s visit to Taiwan.

Baerbock told Wang that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and Germany as a European power, it is very important for the two sides to strengthen dialogue and communication.

“Germany and China have many common interests, and Germany is willing to strengthen interaction and exchanges with China,” she added.

China, which resents any official interaction between Taiwan and a third country, carried out three days of intense military drills around the island from April 8 following Tsai’s return from Los Angeles where she met US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy.