China’s president, Xi Jinping, has vowed to reunify China and Taiwan in his annual New Year’s Eve speech in Beijing. However several governments criticised China’s drills this week, including the UK, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, the EU and the US. In his speech, Xi also highlighted “Taiwan Retrocession Day”, a memorial day created in 2025 to mark the anniversary of the end of Japanese imperial rule in Taiwan in 1945. The legacy of the second world war has been a big theme in political rhetoric in China and Taiwan this year. Earlier in the day, Xi addressed a meeting of top Chinese Communist party officials and said that China was on track to meet its 5% GDP growth target.

Source: The Guardian January 01, 2026 18:17 UTC