Pro-independence forces in Taiwan might launch terrorist attacks on the mainland, Chinese state media charged as it linked them to the banned "evil cult" Falungong.
In what appeared to be a new campaign to blacken the name of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, the leading China Daily newspaper ran an opinion piece headlined "Terrorism part of Taiwan separatist agenda".
Citing military experts and researchers on Taiwan studies, it said terrorism could be used "in an attempt to split the island from China".
It also condemned the United States "for instigating Taipei to engage in terrorism to hurt China's core national interests".
The article was published a day after a Taiwan parliamentary group left for the United States to look into planned billion-dollar weapons purchases. This week Taiwan tested two US-made Patriot missiles.
It also follows a Pentagon report suggesting that Taiwan needs ballistic missiles and land attack cruise missiles capable of hitting the mainland as a "cost effective means of deterrence."
Targets cited include the massive Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, or the 468-metre-high (1,540-foot) Oriental Pearl TV tower in Shanghai.
A Beijing-based military expert identified as Yan Dong was quoted in the China Daily as saying the attack scenarios exposed the tip of the iceberg of "Taiwan independence terrorism."
"That well suggests pro-independence forces in Taiwan are turning to terrorist measures to help pursue their political goal of formal independence for the island," Yan said.
He speculated that the Taiwanese military had planned terrorist attacks "on state leaders, media organisations, nuclear-power plants and hydroelectric projects on the mainland".
"That's because splittist forces are increasingly feeling they have no chance to win a cross-Straits war, given the mainland's growing economic and military power," he said.
China fears that Chen will push for formal independence during his next four-year term and have vowed to "pay any price" to stop him, including force.
Since the Nationalist Party fled China after civil war in 1949, the mainland has insisted Taiwan is a part of China's territory and have repeatedly demanded that the United States end its military relationship with Taiwan.
The report went as far as linking Taiwan independence forces to the Falungong, saying Taiwan separatists "once supported the outlawed Falungong cult to hijack mainland satellite television programmes from the island in September 2002".
Li Jiaquan, a senior researcher with the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Washington should be blamed "for Taipei's terrorist schemes".
"As Taiwan's biggest arms supplier, Washington has always been playing an ignominious role on the Taiwan issue by lending covert or overt support to pro-independence forces in Taiwan," he told China Daily.
"It is shameless for the United States, which has been urging a global anti-terrorism campaign, to encourage Taipei to promote terrorism."