Taipei unimpressed after ARATS opens an office in Macau

Beijing's quasi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS, 海協會) formally opened an office in Macau yesterday, but its Taiwan counterpart said that the move holds little significance for cross-strait relations, and added that practical dialogue between the two agencies would be much more important.

Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), which is authorized to handle talks and non-governmental exchanges with China, has had no dialogue with ARATS since the last Koo-Wang talks (辜汪會談) in 1998, during which heads of the two agencies exchanged opinions on cross-strait affairs.

It has been argued in some quarters that the two agencies have rendered themselves useless in the three years since they last held talks, although the range of exchanges between the two sides, and the numbers of people involved in such activities, continue to grow.

Liu Gangqi (劉綱奇), the Chinese official in charge of Taiwan affairs at Beijing's liaison office in Macau, however, said that the opening of an ARATS office in Macau signified the importance of the former Portuguese colony as a bridge for exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

The new office will work closely with ARATS headquarters in facilitating cross-strait interaction, Liu said.

Macau's media have also heralded the move as indicative of the territory's importance to cross-strait relations.

The Va Kio Daily newspaper (澳門華僑報) said that it revealed that Macau "plays a special role in the interaction between China and Taiwan."

It said that ARATS had chosen Macau rather than Hong Kong for its new office because Hong Kong society had been "overly political in recent years" which made it an "inappropriate venue for an office concerned with such a sensitive issue as cross-strait relations."

It said that Hong Kong's media was too inclined to reveal details of sensitive political interaction between the two sides, but also added that "in the past year, Macao has become the secret location for personnel from two sides to interact."

Macau has, like Hong Kong, served as a point of entry into China for thousands of visiting Taiwanese businesspeople.

But Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐), secretary-general of the SEF, told the Taipei Times that the two agencies are "windows" across the Taiwan Strait, and that in order to bring the full potential of the two organizations into play, "substantial interaction is much more important than just setting up a new branch."

Shi also noted that the SEF had not received official notification from ARATS of the opening of the new office.

"We will therefore not respond at this stage," Shi said. "We need to further observe the situation."

Shi also repeated the call for China to resume the dialogue between the two bodies.

Taiwan's representative to Macau, Tsai Chih-chung (蔡之中), was similarly cautious about the significance of the new office.

"We have heard of the ARATS plan to open an office in Macau. As we remain unaware of its purpose, we should refrain from making any speculative comments on the ARATS move," Tsai said.