Even out of office, Abe still barking up wrong tree: China Daily editorial

Beijing has made it consistently clear that it intends to realize the reunification of Taiwan with the motherland by peaceful means if possible, but by military force if necessary, as it regards it as a historic mission and an unshakable commitment.

The antics of the separatists on the Chinese island and their constant soliciting of foreign interference in the Taiwan question indicate that it is entirely reasonable and fully justified for Beijing to keep the military option on the table.

Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is the latest public figure to throw his hat into the ring with the separatists.

Speaking at the Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue via video link on Tuesday, Abe claimed that there was a threat to Taiwan and its democracy, which he alleged is "a dire challenge to all of us, especially to Japan". Abe even went further to say that "an adventure in military affairs, if pursued by such a huge economy like China's, could be suicidal to say the least".

Abe has no fondness for China, and his scaremongering is intended as character assassination of the country.

He will know that any threat to Taiwan comes from a miscalculation on the part of the island's separatists, their heads swollen with the supportive words of foreign backers, such as Abe himself.

These are not the first wild Taiwan-related remarks from Abe, who recently claimed that a "Taiwan emergency" would be "a Japanese emergency, and therefore an emergency for the Japan-US alliance", which obviously implied the island's independence-desiring Democratic Progressive Party administration has the support of both Japan and the United States.

As a politician, Abe may want to consolidate his leading position in Japan's right wing camp with his belligerent words on Taiwan. Yet his political showboating also reflects the dangerous trend of Japan interfering in the Taiwan question in the hope of gaining a regional advantage by riding on the US' Indo-Pacific policy.

It has enthusiastically jumped on the US bandwagon to contain China's development by hyping up the ridiculous "China threat" theory, taking it as an excuse to log one record high defense budget after another, far beyond the needs of an "exclusively defense-oriented policy".

It should be mindful that it is the one that will swallow the bitter fruit it is growing.

The Taiwan question is purely China's internal affair. Beijing will not allow anyone to intervene. No one should be under any illusion that it doesn't mean what it says and underestimate the resolve, the will and the ability of the Chinese people to defend the nation's sovereign and territorial integrity.