TAIPEI, April 9 (Reuters) - Birds not missiles should fly in the skies, Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun said on Thursday in Shanghai, citing a World War One poem on the need to promote peace, even
as China keeps up its daily military activities around the island
Cheng, chairwoman of Taiwan's largest opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT), is in China on what she has called a "peace" mission to lessen tensions at a time when Beijing has stepped up military pressure against the island it calls its own.
China refuses to talk to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, saying he is a "separatist". Lai's administration has called on Cheng to tell China to stop its threats, and says Beijing should engage with the democratically elected government in Taipei.
Speaking to reporters at Shanghai's Yangshan Port, Cheng said she was fond of how ancient Norse sailors described the sea as the "road of the whale".
"These words are spoken with such humility, and they are entirely right. What should fly in the sky are birds, not missiles. What should swim in the water are fish, not warships," she said, in comments carried live on Taiwanese television stations.
Cheng, who flies to Beijing late on Thursday for a possible meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, also quoted, in English, part of John McCrae's World War One poem "In Flanders Fields" - "If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep".
"We may not have been able to give our ancestors peace, but we can certainly still give peace to the people of today and the people of the future," she said.
Beijing has maintained its daily military activities around Taiwan despite Cheng's presence in China. Taiwan's defence ministry said on Thursday morning that during the previous 24-hour period it had detected six Chinese military aircraft and eight warships around the island.
"The facts prove that the Chinese communists' military threat against Taiwan is intensifying," Michelle Lin, a lawmaker for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, wrote on her Facebook page.
"Cheng Li-wun has been on her trip for two days, and the Chinese communists still have a knife at Taiwan's throat."
Lai has repeatedly offered talks with Beijing, whose sovereignty claims he rejects, saying only the island's people can decide their future.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
