“Absolutely not an option,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Monday of a potential war between her country and China, reiterating her willingness to parlay with Beijing but also pledged to ramp up the island nation’s defences including with precision missiles.

Due to a years-long feud rooted in the baby years of modern, post-imperial China, Beijing has been laying claims to Taiwan, claiming it as its own. President ​​Tsai, in her national day speech outside the presidential office under a grey sky, said it was “regrettable” that China had escalated its intimidation and threatened peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and region. The official went on to stress that China should not think there was room for compromise in the commitment of Taiwan's people to democracy and freedom. “I want to make clear to the Beijing authorities that armed confrontation is absolutely not an option for our two sides. Only by respecting the commitment of the Taiwanese people to our sovereignty, democracy, and freedom can there be a foundation for resuming constructive interaction across the Taiwan Strait,” she said. A barrel of gunwpowder The visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August was the last straw for China, which carried out all-out military manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait and in the air above it. Given Taiwan's vital position in the international community as a key producer of semiconductors used in a whole range of electronic apparatuses from the most mundane to fighter jets, a full-fledged armed conflict over the island could aggregate military involvement of the US, Japan and possibly other actors. The consequences would spell from shattering the global economy to civilians dying en masse. But prospects for talks are limited, regardless of President Tsai’s intentions, because Beijing sees her as a separatist and refuses to speak to her. The speech of the Taiwanese president comes less than a week before China's ruling Communist Party's congress starts in Beijing, where President Xi Jinping is widely expected to win a precedent-breaking third five-year term. An official familiar with President Tsai’s stance spoke on condition of anonymity that she was looking to "clearly convey" her position to the world and Beijing. “Standing firm on the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is the main axis of Tsai's comments on cross-strait relations this year,” the official said, adding this was the world's expectation and responsibility of both Taipei and Beijing. Taiwan trying to return to normalcy but security comes first Still, President Tsai said that her government looked forward to the gradual post-pandemic resumption of healthy and orderly people-to-people exchanges across the strait, which would ease tensions. This was met with loud applause. But the broad consensus in Taiwan is that its sovereignty and free and democratic way of life must be defended, she added. “On this point, we have no room for compromise,” she said. President Tsai has made strengthening Taiwan's defences a centrepiece of her policies. Taiwan will show the world it is taking responsibility for its own defence, the Taiwanese President said. The defence industry of the island proves her words as mass production of precision missiles and high-performance naval vessels is revving up. Taiwan has also sought to acquire small, highly mobile weapons that will ensure it is fully prepared to respond to “external military threats”, according to the president. “I want to specifically emphasise one point to my fellow citizens and the international community, which is that the concentration of the semiconductor sector in Taiwan is not a risk,” she said. “We will continue to maintain Taiwan's advantages and capacity in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing processes, and will help optimise the worldwide restructuring of the semiconductor supply chain, giving our semiconductor firms an even more prominent global role,” she added.

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