China has indisputable sovereignty rights over some of the islands in the South China Sea and people cross-Straits share a common responsibility and obligation to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, a mainland official said Wednesday.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the comments on Wednesday in response to Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou's trip to Taiping Island in the South China Sea on Thursday.

Ma Ying-jeou's office said Wednesday that he would fly to Taiping Island on Thursday to offer Chinese New Year wishes to island residents.

His previous plan to travel to the island was cancelled in December.

The trip comes following the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) landslide victory in the general elections on January 16. Ma's office said it had asked DPP chairwoman and "president-elect" Tsai Ing-wen to send a representative to the trip, but the DPP declined, the Taipei-based Central News Agency reported.

"The DPP appears to be reluctant to join hands with Kuomintang to safeguard sovereignty rights in the South China Sea. As the DPP is poised to become the ruling party, the mainland may face greater challenges in terms of the South China Sea," Wang Jianmin, a cross-Straits scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Taiping Island, which lies 1,600 kilometers south of Taiwan, is the largest island in the Nansha Islands.

Ma Xiaoguang also stressed that supporters of "Taiwan independence" will find no room across the world, and cross-Straits relations will face a serious setback if the 1992 Consensus is not the political foundation.

The core of the 1992 Consensus is that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan belong to "one China" and their relations are not "country-to-country."

It is not realistic for Taiwan to sever economic cooperation with the mainland to expand its so-called "space of international cooperation … Such ideas will go against the bigger picture, as the international community acknowledges the one-China policy, said mainland's Taiwan affairs spokesperson.

Xinhua contributed to this story