Taiwan reunification 'unstoppable': China's Xi Jinping in new year address; highlights $170 billion Brahmaputra dam

Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping in his New Year address on Wednesday said Taiwan’s reunification with China is “unstoppable” while projecting the country’s growing defence advances, and highlighted the construction of the world’s largest dam over Brahmaputra river.

Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a bond of blood and kinship, Xi said in his nationally televised 2026 New Year message.

"The reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable," Xi said amid stepped up high-powered drills by the Chinese military in the last three days around the self-governing island, which China claims as part of its mainland.

This is the sixth time since 2022 that China held intensified military drills using the latest air force jets, aircraft carriers, missiles and drones practising the capture of Taiwan.

In his address, Xi, 72, the longest-serving leader of the People's Republic of China also sought to project advances made by Beijing in economic, defence and tech sectors.

“Construction of the hydropower project at the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra river) started,” he said, referring to the Brahmaputra dam construction.

China formally started the construction of the USD 170 billion dam over Brahmaputra river in ecologically fragile Tibet, closer to the Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh, which evoked concerns of flooding in the lower riparian states of India and Bangladesh.

Xi also spoke of the commissioning of China's first aircraft carrier equipped with an electromagnetic catapult system. The ship named Fujian is the second such carrier in the world after the USS Gerald R. Ford.

“Humanoid robots did kung fu kicks, and drones performed spectacular light shows,” Xi said, referring to China’s advances in AI.

On the Chinese economy, which is struggling with slow growth of around five per cent, relying more on declining exports, Xi said China’s GDP is set to cross USD 20 trillion this year.

“Our economic output has crossed thresholds one after another, and it is expected to reach RMB 140 trillion yuan (USD 20 trillion) this year”.

“Our economic strength, scientific and technological abilities, defence capabilities, and composite national strength all reached new heights,” he said.

On the current global conflicts, Xi said China always stands on the right side of history, and is ready to work with all countries to advance world peace and development and build a community with a shared future for humanity.

China, like the rest of the world, will celebrate the New Year on Thursday.

However, China will shut down for over 10 days in February next year to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Horse, bidding goodbye to the year of the Snake.