Today the Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council issued a strong-worded statement condemning a referendum initiative in Taiwan and warning that China “has made necessary preparations to react to a grave situation.”

At the same time, the People’s Daily, an official organ of the Chinese government, published an article entitled “The Referendum on Joining the U.N. Violates Law.”

For months now, the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling party in Taiwan, has been promoting a referendum in which Taiwanese will be asked to express their opinions on whether Taiwan should join the United Nations under name “Taiwan.” The referendum, if it takes place, will have no actual effect on securing membership for Taiwan in the U.N., where China, a member of the permanent security council, has the authority to veto any motion in favor of membership for Taiwan, which it considers renegade province of China.

Proponents of the referendum in Taiwan know as much about that it is unlikely that Taiwan will be admitted into the U.N. They push the effort largely as an indirect way to assert Taiwan’s independent status. Officially, Taiwan is known as the Republic of China, the constitution of which still claims authority over mainland China, from which the Nationalist government of China retreated, after losing a war with the Communist forces. The Democratic Progressive Party, which governs Taiwan currently and is led by the independence-minded President Chen Shui-bian, hopes to secure popular support for the idea of a Republic of Taiwan and thus severe the connection to mainland China.

Beijing has been greatly alarmed by the referendum initiative in Taiwan, which it views and condemns as illegal separatism. The Chinese government’s official stance on the across-strait relationship is that there is only one China, to which both Taiwan and mainland China belong. The most recent statements out of Beijing indicates that the Chinese government may take strong actions to try to prevent the referendum from taking place. In 2005, China’s National People’s Congress adopted an Anti-Secession Law, which provides the Chinese government the authority to take necessary actions, military actions included, to prevent the independence of Taiwan. If, as recent messages from Beijing indicate, that the Chinese government characterized the current referendum initiative in Taiwan as a violent of the said law, it may have placed itself in a position where it has to take actions.

Washington, worried about how an open conflict across the Taiwan will affect the United States, at a time when the U.S. is struggling with a quagmire in Iraq, has expressed its disapproval of President Chen Shui-bian’s advocacy of the U.N. membership referendum. So far, however, Mr. Chen has defied U.S. appeals and declared that the preparation for the referendum will proceed as planned.

The Nationalist Party in Taiwan, which is in opposition to Mr. Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party, has put forward a suggestion for a referendum of their own, by which residents of Taiwan will vote for a “return” to the United Nations under name of the Republic of China. The Republic of China held China’s seat in the United Nations until the early 1970s, when it was displaced by the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. This referendum initiative has not aroused as much fury in Beijing, since it is not promoted in the name of Taiwan and still honors the historical connection between Taiwan and mainland China.

Beijing has sent out strong messages on its intention to stop the recent push for independence in Taiwan. It remains to be seen, however, what options the Chinese government actually has, ones that can effectively thwart the challenge from Taiwan and at the same time not to arouse so much criticism by the international community, which will doubtless adversely affect the Olympic Games that Beijing is to host next year.