The simmering feud between China and Taiwan burst into the open today when Beijing criticised the island’s President for making strident calls for independence.

Li Zhaoxing, the Chinese Foreign Minister, said: “Don’t listen to local leaders. Whoever wants to split away will become a criminal in history.”

His anger was triggered by remarks at the weekend by Chen Shui-bian, President of the self-ruled island that lies within striking distance of China’s southern coast and which Beijing has regarded as a renegade province since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist armies fled there after losing the civil war in 1949.

Mr Chen, who has in recent weeks accelerated his drive to edge the island towards formal independence from China, told a pro-independence group at the weekend: “Taiwan should be independent.” He added: “Taiwan is a country whose sovereignty lies outside the People’s Republic of China.”

Such bold declarations enrage China’s Communist rulers, who have threatened to take back the island by force if it abandons its formal goal of eventual reunification and declares independence.

Mr Chen said the island should change its official title — the “Republic of China” — a statement that is certain to worry his key ally, the United States, which seeks to maintain the status quo between the two sides. The United States switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taipei in 1979, recognising “one China”, but is obliged by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the island to defend itself.

Mr Chen, speaking in the Taiwanese dialect that is his native tongue, proposed what he called a “four wants” policy — independence, a new constitution, development and new names for local companies that use the word China in their title. That marks a shift from his previous “four no’s” pledge in 2000 not to take steps towards independence if China did not threaten the use of force.

Weakened by a corruption scandal that has ensnared his son-in-law and his wife, Mr Chen is trying to drum up support for his Democratic Progressive Party before legislative elections at the end of the year. He has implemented a series of actions in recent weeks apparently aimed at portraying himself and his party as willing to stand up to threats from China in the interests of greater independence for an island that has ruled itself for nearly 60 years.

The word China was replaced by Taiwan on postage stamps on February 28, an emotive date in Taiwan because it was the 60th anniversary of an uprising against Generalissimo’s Nationalists that was suppressed with more than 10,000 deaths. Last week the Chinese Petroleum Corporation became “CPC Corporation, Taiwan”, while China Shipbuilding Corp is to change its name to “CSBC Corporation, Taiwan”. China has adopted a more low-key response to what it sees as provocations by Mr Chen, generally choosing to ignore him and to play a longer game by waiting for the island’s next presidential elections and the possible election of a Nationalist leader who could be less confrontational. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, issued an offer today to resume talks in his annual state-of-the-nation address to Parliament.

Taiwan’s main opposition Nationalist Party, ruler of all of China until its 1949 defeat by the Communists, said it did not support independence and called Mr Chen’s direction a “disaster for Taiwan”. The Nationalist MP Kuo Shu-chun said: “He could create a chaotic situation and possibly start a war with China.”

The island's 22 million people are split between those who support Mr Chen’s party and those who back the Nationalists, but opinion polls show the majority want to maintain the ambiguous status quo.

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found