China criticises Taiwan resolution

China has condemned a resolution passed by Taiwan's ruling party, which asserts the island's separate identity and calls for a referendum on its sovereignty.

''Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and has never been a country,'' an unnamed official with the ruling Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office said. ''We firmly oppose any 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities in any form.''

The comments were posted on the Chinese government website and printed in many state-run newspapers on Tuesday, highlighting the sensitivity of the issue.

While the resolution, which passed on Sunday after heated debate, will likely ratchet up tensions between the rivals, its contents also appear to be carefully worded so as to not provoke Beijing into responding militarily.

The two sides split during civil war in 1949, but the mainland still considers the democratic island part of its territory, and has threatened to attack if it moves toward formal independence.

Calls for referendum

The resolution by the Democratic Progressive Party calls for a referendum on Taiwan's sovereignty, and making the island's formal name ''Taiwan.'' It also calls for the enactment of a new constitution.

But it appears to lack teeth because it does not demand that the current official title of the ''Republic of China'' be abolished and offers no timetable for the enactment of the constitution or the holding of the referendum.

The Chinese official said he hoped that ''DPP members recognise the trend of future development of cross-Strait relations ... and prevent the risky separatists from pushing the Taiwan people into a disaster.''

The resolution is the latest in a series of steps taken in the waning months of President Chen Shui-bian's final term aimed at strengthening Taiwan's de facto independence.

His campaign this year to try to get the island to rejoin the United Nations under the name of Taiwan for the first time has been unsuccessful.

For the past decade it had tried without success to rejoin the world body as the Republic of China, the name it used in the UN before being expelled in 1971.