Voice of America News reports: “China will not promise to renounce the use of force over Taiwan but this is aimed at external interference and a small minority of separatists, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Wednesday following the country’s latest war games around the island.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, staged a day of large-scale drills around the island on Monday it said were a warning to ‘separatist acts’ following last week’s national day speech by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.

‘We are willing to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification with the utmost sincerity and endeavor,’ Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a regular press briefing in Beijing.

‘But we will never commit ourselves to renouncing the use of force,’ he said.

That is, however, aimed at the interference of ‘external forces’ – a reference to the United States and its allies – and the very small number of Taiwan separatists not the vast majority of Taiwan’s people, Chen said…”