China's refusal to resume dialogue and contacts with Taiwan is detrimental to cross-strait relations, President Chen Shui-bian (
Fresh from a visit to Beijing, ten members of the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, yesterday began a four-day visit, which will include a series of meetings with high-ranking officials.
The members of the delegations and the officials they met said they engaged in extensive discussions on issues covering the cross-strait impasse, the accession to the WTO by Taipei and Beijing, and the domestic problems faced by China and Taiwan.
During their one-hour meeting with Chen, the president told the group that it was the mission of leaders from both sides of the Taiwan Strait to complete the "normalization" of cross-strait ties.
"Only by putting aside differences and thus enhancing contacts and dialogue between the two sides can an improvement in cross-strait ties be made," Chen said, according to a Presidential Office press release.
Chen told the group that it was China's refusal to resume dialogue and contacts that was stalling this rapprochement.
A high-ranking official who joined lively closed-door discussions at both the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained Taiwan's stance.
"Basically we don't have any preconditions [for a meeting]. We can sit down and talk anytime. But Beijing insists on our acceptance of the `one China' policy. So the ball is in Beijing's court," the source, who declined to be named, told the Taipei Times.
Members of the group, who visited Beijing from Jan. 5 to Jan. 9, held disparate views on the prospects for cross-strait relations, with some saying there was room for flexibility.
"I think there is a flexibility there ... Really, deep inside, President Chen and they [political leaders in China] are not so far apart," Major General John L. Fugh told the Taipei Times.
Fugh has traveled to China and Taiwan twice during the past four weeks, with his previous trip being in his capacity as the vice chairman of the Committee of 100.
"It's my personal view that they have some flexibility. Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛) told us that, as long as Taipei accepted the `one China' policy, the two sides could sit down and talk as equals. And anything could be put on the table including what `one China' meant," Fugh said, recalling his trip to Beijing late last year accompanying the Committee of 100 delegation.
Qian said that "one China" could mean a single race, as well as a single nation, Fugh said.
General Jack N. Merritt, head of the delegation, pointed to what he called "positive developments" across the Taiwan Strait.
"We think the things are much more pragmatic and we have great hopes for continuing stability and, most important, for economic integration and growth, which I think is indeed the future on both sides of the Strait," Merritt said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Hung-mao (
"They said the people they talked to in Beijing stressed that the issues of urgent concern are economic and trade issues, with other topics placed secondary," Tien said.
On US-China relations, the impression the delegation got in Beijing was that China believed "relations are back on track," said Walter B. Slocombe, a former US under-secretary of defense.
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