There is plenty of “room for imagination” about a proposed summit between the leaders of China and Taiwan, including the possibility of holding the meeting in a “third location (第三地),” China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Vice Chairman Sun Yafu (孫亞夫) said yesterday.
On where such a summit might be held, Beijing’s position is “for the two sides of the Strait to find a place” for the meeting, Sun told the Chinese-language United Daily News in an interview in Beijing.
That was the position of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), Sun said, adding that Zhang’s remarks were misinterpreted by some news media in Taiwan.
Zhang did not mean to say the summit should be held either in China or Taiwan, Sun said.
It is “too narrow” to read it that way, Sun said.
When asked whether Zhang meant that while Beijing has ruled out holding the meeting in an international setting, it could be held in a place other than China or Taiwan, such as Singapore, Sun said: “Yes. That’s it.”
The first high-level meeting between Taiwan and China took place in Singapore in April 1993, when then-ARATS chairman Wang Daohan (汪道涵) held talks with his Taiwanese counterpart, Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫).
There has been much speculation about President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to improve relations between the two sides.
It has been mooted that such a meeting could be held at the APEC leaders’ summit in Beijing later this year, but China has been cool to the idea, worried that Ma’s appearance at the international gathering would suggest Taiwan’s sovereignty.
China has consistently blocked Taiwan’s presidents from attending APEC meetings, forcing them to send envoys instead.
In the interview, Sun seemed to attach additional conditions to a Ma-Xi meeting, saying that in addition to a suitable venue, “we also need to think about the purpose of a top meeting, what problems it is to resolve and what topics will be on the agenda.”
“If the purpose of the meeting is to seek development in cross-strait relations, rather than just to shake hands, and if we plan a full program for our leaders’ meeting, then the room for imagination can be even bigger,” he said.
Sun gave the interview as he prepared to attend the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a member of the advisory body.
In response, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said that Taipei’s position remains the same: that the annual APEC forum offered the most appropriate setting for a Ma-Xi meeting.
Democratic Progressive Party spokesman Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said Ma should brief the Taiwanese public on any issues relating to a Ma-Xi meeting, “as the president represents the country and must uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty.”
“What’s the definition of a ‘third location? Does it mean a third country or a cross-strait third territory, such as Hong Kong or Macau?” Lin asked.
He said the Ma administration should conduct cross-strait affairs in a transparent manner.
Additional reporting by Lee Hsin-fang
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS