By Jeanny Kao
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan&nbsp;President&nbsp;Tsai Ing-wen on Sunday offered to provide&nbsp;China&nbsp;with "necessary assistance" to&nbsp;help&nbsp;it&nbsp;deal&nbsp;with a&nbsp;surge&nbsp;in&nbsp;COVID-19 cases, but said Chinese military activities near the island were not beneficial to peace and stability.
In an abrupt change of policy,&nbsp;China&nbsp;last month began dismantling the world's strictest pandemic regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, meaning&nbsp;COVID-19 is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.
Tsai, in her traditional new year message, delivered at the&nbsp;presidential office, said everyone had seen the rise in cases in&nbsp;China, which views&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;as its own territory and has ramped up military pressure to assert those claims.
"As long as there is a need, based on the position of humanitarian care, we are willing to provide the necessary assistance to&nbsp;help&nbsp;more people get out of the pandemic and have a healthy and safe new year," she said, without elaborating.
Taiwan&nbsp;and&nbsp;China&nbsp;have repeatedly sparred over their respective measures to control the spread of&nbsp;COVID.
China&nbsp;had criticised&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;for ineffective management of the pandemic after soaring domestic infections last year, while&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;has accused&nbsp;China&nbsp;of a lack of transparency and trying to interfere with vaccine supplies to&nbsp;Taiwan, which Beijing has denied.
Tsai reiterated a call for dialogue with&nbsp;China, saying war was not an option to resolve problems.
Chinese&nbsp;President&nbsp;Xi Jinping, in his New Year address on Saturday evening, made only brief reference of&nbsp;Taiwan, saying people on either side of the&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait "are members of one and the same family", and made no mention of seeking to bring the island under Chinese control.
Tsai, taking questions from reporters, said she had noted Xi's "gentler" remarks.
"But I want to remind people - the military activities of the People's Liberation Army near&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;are not at all conducive to cross-strait relations nor regional peace and stability," she added.
Shortly after Tsai spoke,&nbsp;Taiwan's Defence Ministry said 12 Chinese military aircraft had crossed the median line of the&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Strait, which had previously served as an unofficial buffer between the two sides, in the past 24 hours.
China&nbsp;staged war games near the island in August after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, and those military activities have continued.
Tsai has repeatedly said she wants talks and peace with&nbsp;China&nbsp;but that&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;will defend itself if attacked and that only its 23 million people can decide their future.&nbsp;China&nbsp;views Tsai as a separatist and has refused to talk to her.
(Reporting by Jeanny Kao; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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