Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) is set to meet with Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing on May 4 after a forum in Shanghai, the KMT announced yesterday.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) announced the meeting simultaneously, calling it “a major event” in high-level exchanges between the CCP and the KMT.
Specific issues up for discussion were not revealed by either party, except a broad theme of “prospects for cross-strait relations” and “welfare of the people on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait,” according to their statements.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
“The agenda is not yet finalized, because it takes time to consult each other on details,” KMT spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) said.
Yang said the meeting would take place at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Chu is scheduled to arrive in Shanghai on Saturday next week to give a speech at Fudan University before he and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲) preside over the 10th KMT-CCP forum, formally known as the Cross-Strait Economic and Cultural Forum.
The KMT delegation is to then travel to Beijing for the meeting with Xi, followed by a speech by Chu at Peking University and a visit to the Temple of Azure Clouds, where a cenotaph was made for Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in tribute to the founding father of the Republic of China, before they wrap up the three-day visit.
The forum is to address issues concerning small and medium enterprises; youth and the general public; economics, trade and technology; and culture and education, the KMT said.
The KMT delegation includes Vice Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), Secretary-General Lee Shu-chuan (李四川), former Straits Exchange Foundation vice chairman Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉) and National Policy Foundation executive general Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘), in addition to representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises and of the young generation.
Approached for a comment yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) reiterated her reminder to Chu that he should not construe cross-strait relations as relations between the KMT and the CCP, “because cross-strait relations are not relations between the KMT and the CCP.”
Politicians must put the interests of Taiwan ahead of party interests, Tsai said.
The Chu-Xi meeting is to be the first meeting between leaders of the KMT and the CCP since former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) met with then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in May 2009.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who resigned the chairmanship in November, failed to set up a meeting with Xi at last year’s APEC summit.
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