China's official media fired another salvo at Taiwan's president, Mr Lee Teng-hui, yesterday for discarding the `One China' policy, calling him a "manipulator" exploiting frayed China-US ties for personal ends.
Mr Lee "has put himself in the defendant's seat as a person condemned by history for vainly attempting to separate the motherland", the official Xinhua news agency said.
"An independent Taiwan is a dead end," it said, adding that "Lee Teng-hui's splittist route is bound to end in failure".
Taipei triggered the latest cross-straits crisis by declaring on Monday it was abandoning the "One China" policy - the foundation of Taipei-Beijing relations for decades.
It said the idea of one, indivisible China that included Taiwan - a formula that has prevented war - had to be scrapped as Beijing was using it to undermine the legitimacy of Taiwan.
China responded with predictable rage and days of vitriolic attacks on Mr Lee, who first publicised the policy shift in an interview with German media last weekend.
Mr Lee was "manipulating power for personal ends and lacked sincerity", the agency said, adding that he was exploiting frayed ties with the United States to "continue to influence Taiwan politics after he steps down".
The next presidential elections in Taiwan are in March 2000.
China-US ties have been damaged by accusations that Beijing stole American nuclear secrets over a period of 20 years and NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last May.
NATO said the bombing was a mistake, but China maintains it was deliberate.
Mr Lee "shouts out for democracy, but ignores Taiwan's desires for stability, peace and hopes for improved relations with China not worsened ties," Xinhua news agency continued.
"The developing situation of the two shores' relationship contradicts Lee's real intention to destroy the motherland," it said. China, however, is unlikely to escalate its rage over Taiwan's controversial policy change beyond harsh criticism and threats, analysts and diplomats say.
"We've been through a couple of days of very strong rhetoric and hyperbole, but now it's cooling down a bit," said Hong Kong-based Sinologist Mr Jean-Pierre Cabestan, director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China.
On Thursday, China repeated a threat to invade if Taiwan declared independence and, with what appeared to be carefully calculated timing, announced it could make the neutron bomb, which kills people but leaves property relatively intact.
But the country was still seen as unlikely to escalate the crisis to the levels of 1995-96, when it held months of war games near Taiwan after President Lee visited the United States and Washington sent two aircraft carriers to the region, diplomats said.