Ambassador Zhou Pingjian: To Keep China One

　2019年1月6日，驻尼日利亚大使周平剑在尼主流大报《今日报》《领导者报》《先锋报》等发表署名文章，宣介习近平总书记在《告台湾同胞书》发表40周年纪念会上的重要讲话精神。《人民报》4日、《每日信报》5日发表该文。文章如下：

　　1月2日，习近平主席在《告台湾同胞书》发表40周年纪念会上发表重要讲话，强调“祖国必须统一，也必然统一。这是70载两岸关系发展历程的历史定论，也是新时代中华民族伟大复兴的必然要求。”

On January 4-6, 2019, Nigerian leading newspaper Peoples Daily, Daily Trust, Leadership, Thisday, and Vanguard published an article written by Ambassador of China to Nigeria Dr.Zhou Pingjian. The full text goes as follows:

"China must be, will be reunified," said Chinese President Xi Jinping in his speech delivered on January 2 at a gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of issuing Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. "It is a historical conclusion drawn over the 70 years of the development of cross-Straits relations, and a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era," he said.

　　台湾是中国第一大岛，地处中国大陆的东南缘，自古即属于中国，同大陆是不可分割的整体。 1949年10月1日，中国人民在中国共产党领导下取得了新民主主义革命的伟大胜利，建立了中华人民共和国。国民党统治集团退踞中国的台湾省，在外国势力的支持下，与中央政府对峙，由此产生了台湾问题。

Taiwan, lying off the southeastern coast of the Chinese mainland, is China's largest island and forms an integral whole with the mainland. Taiwan has belonged to China since ancient times.

On October 1, 1949, the Chinese people led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) won a great victory in the new democratic revolution and founded the People's Republic of China. The Kuomintang (KMT) ruling clique retreated from the mainland to entrench in China's Taiwan Province in confrontation with the Central Government with the support of foreign forces. This is the origin of the Taiwan issue.

　　1949年以来，大陆和台湾尽管尚未统一，但不是中国领土和主权的分裂，而是上个世纪40年代中后期中国内战遗留并延续的政治对立。中国共产党、中国政府、中国人民始终把解决台湾问题、实现祖国完全统一作为矢志不渝的历史任务。1979年1月1日发表的《告台湾同胞书》明确了台湾问题是内政问题，郑重宣示了争取祖国和平统一的大政方针。

Although the mainland and Taiwan have remained to be reunified since 1949, the Chinese territory and sovereignty have not been split. The two sides are in a state of political confrontation resulting from China's civil war in the mid- to late- 1940s.

Since 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese government and the Chinese people have always unwaveringly taken resolving the Taiwan question to realize China's complete reunification as a historic task.

The message to compatriots in Taiwan issued by Beijing on January 1, 1979, made clear the question of Taiwan is an internal affair and set out the fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification.