Illustration: Liu Rui/ GT

The Taiwan region has always been an inseparable part of China - a fact grounded in deep historical roots and solid legal foundations. Lai Ching-te, the Taiwan leader, recently launched what he called the "10 talks on unity." Judging by the content, the "unity" is nothing but a smokescreen for reiterating the long-discredited separatist fallacies of the "Taiwan independence" movement. He distorts the history of the Taiwan region and denies the bloodline connection between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. His rhetoric seriously violates the historical, factual and legal reality that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to one China, fully exposing his inherent pro-independence stance.

Lai's fabrications began with the bizarre claim that the Taiwan region has had a distinct ecological system since ancient times, stretching from mammoth fossils to human skulls. However, geological studies confirm that Taiwan was once connected to the Chinese mainland via the "Dongshan Land Bridge," and the Taiwan Straits formed as a result of rising sea levels. This geological backdrop clearly indicates the natural continuity of ecosystems across the Straits. Lai's assertion is scientifically baseless. 

In fact, not only did the indigenous peoples in Taiwan originate from the Chinese mainland. After the Han people from Fujian and Guangdong migrated to the island of Taiwan, they engaged in long-term interaction with the indigenous, resulting in a relationship of mutual integration. Archaeological evidence clearly shows that ancient coastal residents of southeastern China sailed to the island of Taiwan, and later to the South Pacific islands. The southeastern coastal region of the mainland is the ancestral homeland of the Austronesian language.

Lai not only makes absurd claims about the prehistoric past, but also categorically denies the historical fact that Taiwan has belonged to China since ancient times. Countless historical records have long confirmed that it was the Chinese people who first developed and settled in Taiwan. 

In AD230, during the Three Kingdoms period, Shen Ying of the state of Wu documented Taiwan in his Seaboard Geographic Gazetteer - the earliest known written account of the island. Starting from the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368), the central governments of China all set up administrative bodies to exercise jurisdiction over Taiwan. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong, a general of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), led an expedition and expelled the Dutch colonizers from the island of Taiwan. In 1684, a Taiwan prefecture administration was set up under the jurisdiction of Fujian Province. In 1885, Taiwan's status was upgraded to a province of China. Lai's remarks betray his own ancestors and reveal malicious intent.

Lai turns the patriotic sentiments of the Taiwan people during the anti-Japanese movements  into a tool for separatist propaganda. In 1895, after the defeat of the Qing government, it signed the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding Taiwan and the nearby Penghu Islands. Upon the news breaking out, the entire nation swiftly erupted in large-scale patriotic national salvation movements opposing the cession of the Taiwan region. The people in Taiwan fought bravely to save themselves and resist Japanese occupation. Lai's speech deliberately ignores an important historical fact, that is, during the Japanese occupation of the Taiwan region, all resistance movements aimed at the return of Taiwan. Almost all anti-Japanese movements took the spirit of the Chinese nation as the source of resistance. The anti-Japanese movements in the Taiwan region were part of China's anti-Japanese and national salvation movement, and the goal was the recovery of Taiwan. 

On the legal level, important international documents during World War II clearly stipulated the status of Taiwan. For instance, the Cairo Declaration (1943) demanded that Japan return the Chinese territories it once occupied. On October 25, 1945, the Chinese government announced that it was resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan. The recovery of Taiwan was an important outcome achieved through the sacrifices and efforts of people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. However, Lai deliberately avoids mentioning the historical documents as if they did not exist.

Regarding the postwar history of Taiwan, the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 thoroughly resolved once and for all the question of the representation of the whole of China, including Taiwan, in the United Nations as a political, legal and procedural issue, confirming that there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is a part of China. In international practice, the one-China principle has been widely recognized. The current reality of cross-Straits relations also proves the natural connection between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. Economically, cross-Straits trade is huge and integration is deepening. Socially, there are hundreds of thousands of cross-Straits marriages and families. Culturally, compatriots on the island come to the Chinese mainland in a continuous stream to trace their roots. These facts fully demonstrate that any attempt to sever the ethnic ties is doomed to fail and lacks support.

The author is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn