![Chinese President Xi Jinping listens to a speech during an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Jan. 2, 2019 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/l_china-taiwan-speech-01022018-1.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In his first major policy speech on Taiwan since taking office in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Taipei on Wednesday that efforts to assert independence could be met with force and called unification between the “two sides of the strait” the “great trend of history.” Xi’s address at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, which largely reaffirmed China’s current policy toward Taiwan, came just over a month after the major opposition party, the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), […]