President Tsai Ing-wen Calls on Beijing to Treat Taiwan as a Sovereign State

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday that the democratic island would only deal with China on an equal footing, and would continue to insist on its freedom, democracy and sovereignty in the face of a growing threat from Beijing.

In her 2020 New Year's Address on Jan. 1, Tsai called on China to recognize the existence of the Republic of China, founded by the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist party after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and relocated to Taiwan after Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war to Mao Zedong's communists in 1949. She said China has used diplomatic offensives, military threats, interference and infiltration to try to force the island to compromise its sovereignty.

But Tsai said Taiwan would never agree to becoming part of the People's Republic of China in its current, authoritarian state. "Democracy and authoritarianism cannot coexist within the same country," Tsai said.

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