If China’s claims for the Taiwan are a matter of territorial integrity, then Beijing should also take back territory from Russia that the last Chinese dynasty ceded in capitulation in the 19th century, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said in an interview with Taiwanese media .

OR China it regards Taiwan – ruled by democratically elected governments – as its own territory and has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan’s government rejects this claim by Beijing, saying only the island’s residents can decide their future.

Speaking in an interview with a Taiwanese television station broadcast late yesterday, Lai, whom China calls a “separatist”, referred to the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, in which China signed a concession to the then Russian empire of a vast tract of land in what it is now the Far East of Russiaforming much of Russia’s present-day border along the Amur River.

China’s Imperial Qing Dynasty, which was in its final stages of decline when the Treaty was signed, initially refused to ratify the Treaty, but ratified it two years later in the Beijing Convention, one of what China calls “unequal” treaties it signed with foreign powers in the 19th century.

“China’s intention to attack and annex Taiwan is not because of what any individual or political party in Taiwan says or does. It is not for the sake of territorial integrity that China wants to annex Taiwan,” Lai stressed.

“If (s.s. this intention of China) is for the sake of territorial integrity, why does it not take back the territories occupied by Russia and which were ceded to Treaty of Aigun; Russia is today in the weakest position to assert its right,” he added.

“The Aigun Treaty was signed during the Qing Dynasty – you can ask Russia (for the return of the land) but you don’t. So it’s obvious they don’t want to invade Taiwan for territorial reasons.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lai’s remarks.

The Chinese government maintains that Taiwan has been Chinese territory since ancient times.

The Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 in yet another “unequal” treaty and in 1945 with the end of World War II Taiwan was ceded to the government of the Republic of China which four years later fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war against Mao Zedong’s communists.

Lai said that what China really wants to do with its plans for Taiwan is to change the rules-based international order.

“It has hegemonic ambitions internationally, in the Western Pacific – that’s its real goal,” he concluded.