It's not every day that China releases a white paper on Taiwan.
This has only happened twice before, in 1993 and 2000. Since then, the small island state with more than 23 million inhabitants has expanded its democracy.
On Wednesday, a few days after the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the "speaker" of the US House of Representatives, and in the wake of military tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Beijing once again published the basic security policy guidelines for dealing with Taiwan, for the first time since China took power President Xi Jinping.
Tim Niendorf
political editor.
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In it, Beijing accused Prime Minister Tsai Ing-wen's ruling DPP party of having adopted a "separatist stance".
The party is to blame for the fact that tensions have arisen in the Taiwan Strait, which run counter to "peaceful reunification".
The word "peaceful" appears 54 times, but Beijing reiterates that "we will not refrain from the use of force and reserve the right to take any necessary action" should there be any separatist movements.
This was mentioned as early as the 2000 White Paper, when Beijing even threatened violence for the first time if Taiwan closed negotiations on reunification.
It was also said at the time that Taiwan would have a "high degree of autonomy" after reunification and that Beijing would not send any troops.
The current white paper also states that Taiwan will become a "special administrative region" - and the promise not to send troops is now missing.
Meanwhile, after days of military maneuvers that Taiwan has described as a test run for an invasion, China said it had ended drills.
"Regular patrols" will continue to exist.
Meanwhile, it has become known that the deputy chairman of the pro-China Taiwanese opposition party KMT, Andrew Hsia, has traveled to China.
Premier Tsai criticized him for sending a "wrong message to the international community".
She called China's efforts towards reunification from the new White Paper unrealistic "wishful thinking".