Taiwan and China’s top cross-strait negotiators may meet on Nov. 3 in Taipei, with the schedule expected to be finalized during a preparatory round of talks in China on Monday, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) announced yesterday.
Chiang told a press conference at the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) office yesterday afternoon that he had proposed Nov. 3 to his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
If all goes well during the meeting with SEF officials in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on Monday, China will finalize the date and itinerary, Chiang said.
ITINERARY
The SEF chief said that Chen’s itinerary would be simple: Aside from the official meeting and signing of agreements, Chen will visit some of Taiwan’s tourist attractions.
Chiang and Chen met for the first time in June after cross-strait talks were suspended in 1998. During the June meeting, the two sides signed agreements to launch weekend cross-strait charter flights and ease the cap on Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.
The agenda of the upcoming Chiang-Chen meeting will include expansion of weekend charter flights, direct aviation routes, charter cargo flights, direct sea transport, postal cooperation and establishing a food safety cooperation mechanism.
MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday that establishing direct aviation routes would not compromise national security, adding that the Ministry of National Defense fully supports the proposal.
Responding to concerns on how Chen would address President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during their meeting, Lai said Ma is the president of the Republic of China and no matter what title Chen uses to address Ma, it will not change the fact that Ma is the president of the country.
“The arrangement will be made under the principle of equality and dignity,” she said. “We will follow the arrangements used in the first negotiations held in Beijing.”
When asked by the Taipei Times on former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) suggestion that Taipei reject Chen Yunlin’s visit if Beijing does not support Taiwan having its own interpretation of “one China,” Lai said she did not understand why both sides should refuse to hold talks if the agreements served the public interest.
Saying the resumption of the negotiation channel between the quasi-official SEF and ARATS has the support of the Taiwanese and the international community, Lai said it was important to use the channel to address issues that arise during the course of exchanges between peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
PEACEFUL
“It is bound to help the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations,” she said.
Asked to comment on the confrontation between Taiwanese activists and ARATS Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing (張銘清) in Tainan on Tuesday, Lai said that the administration would make sure that Chen’s visit is “safe, dignified, comfortable.”
“We are confident that he will be well protected,” Lai said, adding that the National Security Bureau and the National Police Agency would cooperate to ensure his safety.
Also See: Chen pans Ma for ‘breaking’ vow
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS