On April 13, Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret.), a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a China Forum expert, gave an interview to BBC News on China’s recent military drills around Taiwan.

The island has always been an integral part of Chinese territory, and the drills are a “warning” to the Taiwanese authorities over their separatist provocations, as well as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s aim of becoming world-class military, said Zhou.

Most governments in the world recognize the one-China principle, said Zhou. There are about 1.5 million Taiwanese living and working in the mainland, which shows that cross-strait integration has already started and the differences between the two systems are not an obstacle, he added.

On whether China and the United States will be heading towards a clash over Taiwan, Zhou said that peaceful reunification is the established policy of the Chinese government and that China has never published a timetable; that said, every sovereign state has the right to use whatever means it deems necessary to prevent its division.

Watch the interview here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n42qvnkxog