A People's Liberation Army（PLA） soldier looks around with a telescope on August 5, 2022, as the Navy of the PLA Eastern Theater Command continues drills the waters around the island of Taiwan. Photo: Xinhua

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Saturday passed a resolution on an amendment to the CPC Constitution. Fully, faithfully, and resolutely implementing the policy of One Country, Two Systems; resolutely opposing and deterring separatists seeking "Taiwan independence" will be added to the amended Party Constitution.

The Congress notes that since the 19th National Congress, Comrade Xi Jinping has put forward a series of new ideas, new thinking, and new strategies on national defense, the armed forces, the united front, and foreign affairs. It agrees to include in the Party Constitution statements on enhancing political loyalty in the military, strengthening the military through reform, science and technology, and personnel training, and running the military in accordance with the law; elevating the people's armed forces to world-class standards; fully, faithfully, and resolutely implementing the policy of One Country, Two Systems; resolutely opposing and deterring separatists seeking "Taiwan independence"; holding dear humanity's shared values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom; and advancing the building of an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.

These revisions reaffirm the Party's commitment to building a strong military with Chinese characteristics, making sustained and steady progress with the One Country, Two Systems policy, advancing national reunification, promoting the building of a human community with a shared future, and leading the tide of human progress.

Speaking at the opening session of the 20th CPC National Congress on October 16, Xi said that "We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort, but we will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary. This is directed solely at interference by outside forces and the few separatists seeking 'Taiwan independence' and their separatist activities; it is by no means targeted at our Taiwan compatriots."

Xi said that the wheels of history are rolling on toward China's reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. "Complete reunification of our country must be realized, and it can, without doubt, be realized!"

The inclusion of "resolutely opposing and deterring separatists seeking 'Taiwan independence'" in the amended Party Constitution indicates that the CPC leadership understands national reunification is an essential step toward national rejuvenation and it takes the reunification as a crucial historical task of its governance, Tian Feilong, a legal expert at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Saturday.

The Party will lead the entire country to firmly grasp the initiative of the cross-Straits relations, to create and build up the momentum to promote reunification, until the final realization of the national reunification, said Tian.

The 19th National Congress of the CPC, which was held in 2017, adopted the revised Constitution of the CPC, which says that "the Party shall work continuously to strengthen the unity of all the Chinese people, including compatriots in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and in Taiwan as well as overseas Chinese. It shall promote long-term prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao and achieve the reunification of the motherland in conformity with the principle of One Country, Two Systems.

Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan affairs from Nankai University, pointed out that "fully, faithfully, and resolutely implement the policy of One Country, Two Systems" being included into the amended Party Constitution shows that the Party leadership has formed a "more precise and richer" mastery of legal principle and practice of the policy, and that the Party is more committed to using One Country, Two Systems to promote better development and better opening up.

It also sent a signal to Hong Kong, Macao, and the international community that "One Country" and "Two Systems" are integral to each other, and the CPC is the key to promoting the steady implementation of this policy, said the observer.