Deputy Taipei Mayor Pai Hsiu-hsiung (白秀雄), heading a large delegation of municipal officials and elected representatives, left for Shanghai yesterday to attend a forum on urban development and city-to-city exchanges.
This is the first time that China has agreed to allow Taiwan officials to visit in their official capacity.
Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi (
During the 10-day trip, the delegation will also visit Nanjing. But due to opposition from the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the group has canceled a planned visit to the southwestern city of Guilin.
Before his departure, Pai said that in addition to attending the Taipei-Shanghai City Forum which begins on Tuesday, he will conduct talks with Shanghai officials on concrete city-to-city exchange programs in cultural, educational, sports and social welfare fields.
The group will also visit the preparatory office and construction site for a Taiwan school to be built soon to help resolve education problems for school-age children of the Taiwan business community in Shanghai.
Following its Shanghai visit, the Taipei city delegation will travel to Nanjing to promote cultural and educational exchanges between the two cities.
The delegation is composed of more than 30 members, including 10 city government officials and advisers, four city councilors, one legislator and several urban development and mainland affairs experts.
Because Taiwan has not yet formally opened city-to-city exchanges with China, the Taipei City Government and the MAC -- which charts Taiwan's policy toward the mainland -- disagreed over the delegation's itinerary.
Pai originally planned to visit Guilin with some of the delegates, but canceled the plan at the last minute due to the MAC's opposition. Pai said he felt regret over the MAC's handling of the issue and has decided to resign from his post as convener of the Taipei City Government's mainland affairs task force after his return to Taiwan.
Some mission members also complained about the MAC's restrictions on their activities in Shanghai.
They said the MAC has advised them not to meet with staff members of Beijing's Association Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), a semi-official intermediary body authorized by mainland authorities to handle exchanges with Taiwan in the absence of official ties.
ARATS has long shunned contacts with its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), because Chinese authorities still refuse to resume the long-stalled cross-strait dialogue.
In Beijing, a spokesman for ARATS said that Taiwan authorities were "deliberately deceitful" by saying in recent days they have prepared to resume dialogue, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
The spokesman said it was mendacious for the Taiwan authorities to say: "We have prepared tea and chairs for guests, and are just waiting for our counterparts to start talks."
The report did not give any specifics about the alleged comments by Taiwan officials.
The spokesman reiterated China's stance that before talks can resume between the two sides, Taiwan must accept the "one China" principle, under which Beijing asserts Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.
The spokesman added thatTaiwan authorities still take an evasive attitude toward the principle.
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