President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday dismissed a news report claiming that he informed the US of his plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) just four days ahead of time, saying that Washington was given five days’ notice.
“We notified the US government five days before the meeting and it expressed appreciation for our early notice and the ‘zero accidents’ in our relations,” Ma said while meeting with officials of Lions Club International District 300G2 at the Presidential Office in Taipei.
Ma said that his administration would never let the US learn about such a development from the media, adding that Washington welcomed and supported his decision.
Photo: CNA
His comments came one day after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) published an exclusive story that cited a “credible source” as saying that Ma’s administration had only notified the US government of the Xi meeting via the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Nov. 3.
The article said that Japan was told the following day, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) also learned about it later because he is not part of Ma’s decisionmaking inner circle.
Ma said that the purpose of the Singapore meeting on Nov. 7 was to maintain peace and the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait and to create wealth for people from both sides of the Strait to share.
“Peace across the Strait is the foundation of everything. Without peace, there will be no prosperity. That is why I have endeavored to strengthen cross-strait peace for the past seven years,” Ma said.
The meeting conveyed a message to the world that both sides of the Strait are committed to maintaining peace, which has a significant impact on regional and global levels, he said.
The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ comment a few days ago that it was willing to host a similar meeting in the future was also a positive sign, the president said.
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