After the New Year's Day speech by Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, cautioned that any pursuit of independence will only throw Taiwan into a "deep chasm" and result in a "profound catastrophe".
She said that Beijing was willing to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification, but warned that if separatist forces on the island "continue to provoke and coerce", or cross Beijing's redline, Beijing would be left with no choice but "to take decisive measures".
That is an unequivocal statement that exposes the duplicity in Tsai's words.
In her speech Tsai said that "We must remind the Beijing authorities to not misjudge the situation and to prevent the internal expansion of military adventurism", declaring that use of military force was not an option for solving cross-Straits disagreements.
But as her speech showed, it is she and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party that are in danger of miscalculating the situation with their adventurism.
Beijing has long made it clear that it seeks peaceful reunification of the island with the motherland. It is the constant provocations of the secessionist-minded DPP authorities on the island and their colluding with foreign forces that necessitate Beijing keeping the military option on the table.
It is the Tsai authorities' refusal to uphold the 1992 Consensus on one China and their reckless bid to assert a distinct status for the island that is the cause of the current frictions, which are exacerbated by their attempts to ride on the US-led Western powers' efforts to contain China.
In May, the DPP's attempt to get the island admitted as a distinct member of the World Health Assembly was rejected, marking the fifth consecutive year that such a politically-motivated attempt to gain de facto recognition for the island as a "UN member" in its own right was defeated.
On Friday, the day before Tsai's speech, China opened its embassy in Nicaragua, which is the latest country to recognize Beijing's sovereignty over the island, joining the other 180 countries that uphold the one-China principle.
The one-China principle has long been an international norm and a consensus of the global community and the attempts by Tsai and the DPP to create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan" have and will gain no traction.
Instead of cozying up to the Western powers in a bid to take advantage of their efforts to suppress China's development, Tsai and the DPP should heed her own words and work with Beijing to ease tensions in the region, "calm the hearts of the people" and take care of people's livelihoods.
There is but one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. Any attempt by the DPP to split Taiwan from the motherland to play into the hands of the West's anti-China "competition" will only court disaster.