Beijing will not allow any "Taiwan independence" secessionist to split China, An Fengshan, spokesman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Wednesday.The comment came against the backdrop of recent visits to Taiwan by two officials from the United States after US President Donald Trump signed a bill called the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages reciprocal visits between Taiwan and the US by officials at all levels.Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary of the US State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited Taiwan from March 20 to 22. Another US official, Ed Royce, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman and a Republican, visited the island after Wong. The visits increased friction in cross-Straits relations.Beijing opposes the travel act and has urged the US to adhere to the one-China policy, and it initiated negotiations on the issue to urge the US to adhere to the three joint communiques that lay out the two countries' mutual understanding."The mainland's major principle toward Taiwan is clear and consistent," An said in response to a China Daily question about "armed reunification"."We will work in utmost sincerity and make our best effort to strive for peaceful reunification," An said. "Our determination to safeguard our country's territorial sovereignty is steadfast. We will not allow any 'Taiwan independence' force to separate the island from China."President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on March 20 at the closing meeting of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress in which he vowed to defeat secessionist attempts. The speech was seen as a strong warning to Taiwan."Any actions and tricks to split China are doomed to fail. And these separatists' actions will be met with the condemnation of the people and the punishment of history," Xi said.He also said that the Chinese people "have the resolve, the confidence and the ability to defeat secessionist attempts in any form".An article about the tactics of Taiwan reunification by military force - written by Lieutenant General Wang Hongguang, a retired deputy commander of the former Nanjing Military Command of the People's Liberation Army - was published on the website of Global Times on Tuesday. Global Times is a subsidiary of People's Daily.At the end of the article, Wang introduced what he said would be his next topic concerning military action: "Taking Taiwan in less than three days".Zhu Songling, a professor of Taiwan studies at Beijing Union University, said, "Reunification cannot be stopped. It is China's domestic issue."The signing of the Taiwan Travel Act "greatly harmed cross-Straits and China-US relations", Zhu said. "We should realize it is not a good sign, and should pay more attention at the tactical level." personalised rubber bracelets uksilicone braceletspersonalised rubber wristbandsbracelet maker onlineprintable wristbandsjordan wristbandwristbands onlineglow wristbandsmake rubber bracelets24 hour wristbands coupon code
China released regional rankings for its green development index on Tuesday, the first time the country has evaluated local performance based on environment-related indicators rather than speed of GDP growth.Analysts said the move will help the country achieve a more coordinated social, economic and environmental development.Beijing tops the overall green development rankings among 31 provinces and regions on the Chinese mainland, followed by Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Chongqing, according to results released by the National Bureau of Statistics. The Ningxia Hui, Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions round out the bottom three.The index covers seven major subindexes, including resource utilization, environmental governance, environmental quality, ecological protection, growth quality, green life and public satisfaction. Indicators such as total energy consumption, carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product and total water consumption are included in the assessment system.The capital stands out in terms of environmental governance, quality of growth and green life, but it falls toward the bottom in terms of environmental quality.China has made more efforts to upgrade its growth model and improve its ecological system since 2013 and at the 19th CPC National Congress in October the leadership further called for attaching importance to the coordinated development of economic, social and environmental development and urged improvements to the country's economic and social development assessment system.The index will play an important role in improving the social and economic development assessment system and guide regions and departments to implement new development concepts and form better career performance concepts, said Ning Ji¬zhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission."Ecological civilization construction is a long-term, tough systemic project and annual appraisals (of green development) will be standard in the future," said Ning, who also is head of the bureau of statistics.The public satisfaction sub-index, based on surveys by the bureau, includes 14 indicators, such as natural environment and local pollution and environmental management, said Jin Yongjin, an economist at Renmin University of China.The public satisfaction survey has been conducted seriously and thoroughly in all areas, he said. "So the results are reliable and persuasive."The move to survey public satisfaction is "down-to-earth" and "supported by the public", said Li Xiaoxi, an economist at Beijing Normal University.He said the green development index "can reflect the overall development of protections for ecological systems in China's provinces and regions"."It is a powerful measure for China to accomplish its green development strategy and provides a valuable basis for officials at all levels, especially provincial-level officials, to implement a green development strategy and the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20)."Local authorities have started to map out their own assessment rules to implement the central government's new policy.In Hainan, for example, the provincial government has released a new development assessment method that no longer includes GDP, industrial output or fixed-asset investment growth in assessing the performance of 12 out of 19 cities and counties in the province. Meanwhile, failure to meet ecological and environmental protection standards will be equal to a veto in assessment of local development, according to the new rule.
