Setting preconditions for cross-strait exchanges are not conducive to “meaningful dialogue,” Presidential Office spokesperson Alex Huang (黃重諺) said yesterday.
“Preconditions are not necessary for meaningful dialogue; only those [without preconditions] can facilitate genuine understanding between the two sides. Maintaining peace and stability across the Strait is the responsibility of both sides, and the Presidential Office believes that any initiative that improves mutual understanding is a worthy and positive effort,” Huang said.
Huang’s remark was in response to comments made yesterday by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), who said that as long as the political foundation of the so-called “1992 consensus” remains solid, cross-strait exchanges can still be pushed forward.
Photo: CNA
The “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a supposed understanding reached during cross-strait talks in 1992 that both Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have never recognized the existence of such an agreement. China consequently cut off official channels of communication with Taiwan after Tsai was sworn in as president on May 20.
A Taiwanese delegation, comprised of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and independent heads of local governments or their deputies, on Saturday arrived in Beijing and met with Zhang and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲) ostensibly to discuss tourism and trade-related issues. The delegation, whose members include Hsinchu Commissioner Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳), Miaoli Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌), Hualien Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), Lienchiang Commissioner Liu Tseng-ying (劉增應), New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Yeh Hui-ching (葉惠青), Taitung County Deputy Commissioner Chen Chin-hu (陳金虎) and Kinmen Deputy Commissioner Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), called for both sides of the Strait to choose a “broad avenue” on which cross-strait economic, tourism, cultural and agricultural cooperation can be continued.
Photo: CNA
Zhang said the Taiwanese delegation is visiting China because local government heads are “disturbed” by the “severe impact” on cross-strait relations that arose from “changes in Taiwan’s political situation following May 20.”
The delegates “recognize the 1992 consensus and support peaceful development,” Zhang said, adding that the attendees have agreed “to insist on the 1992 consensus as a common political foundation, regardless of changes in the situation.”
“City-to-city exchanges are to continue under the precondition that the Taiwanese local governmental heads support the 1992 consensus,” he said.
National Taiwan University professor of political science Fan Shih-ping (范世平) said that by holding the meeting, Beijing runs the risk of tacitly admitting that Chinese tourists are a tool of united front political warfare, while calling into question the meeting’s ability to change the overall cross-strait conditions in any meaningful way.
“It seems that the TAO is doing busy work to fill quotas for the benefit of its higher-ups,” he said.
It is inappropriate for county commissioners and city mayors to visit Beijing at a time when they should be providing disaster relief to their constituents after the typhoons last week, DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said, adding that Beijing’s attempt to divide Taiwan’s local governments would lead to “backlash from residents of other counties and cities.”
A senior official involved in cross-strait affairs speaking on the condition of anonymity said that Beijing is believed to regard the delegation as little more than tool for “1992 consensus” propaganda and the delegates are unlikely to wring any concrete guarantees from China.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS