China continues to mark against Taiwan. Defense spokesman Wu Qian claims once again that the island kingdom is part of China, and that the Chinese military "takes its sacred responsibility to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity".
All attempts to break away for Taiwanese independence will be resolutely crushed, he says at a press conference in Beijing.
In practice, Taiwan has functioned as its own nation since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when two rival governments took over in Beijing and Taipei respectively.
