Beijing's communist leaders won't meet with their DPP counterparts in party-to-party talks unless the DPP drops its independence plank from its platform, China's embassy spokesman in Washington said on Monday.
As long as the independence clause remains, China "will not have contact with them," Xie Feng (
Xie made the comments in response to a question during a rare press conference held at the Chinese Embassy, in which Taiwan and recent US reports on China's military buildup were discussed.
"I think China's position on the Democratic Progressive Party has been made quite clear," Xie said. "Unless the [DPP] gives up its party platform, which is supportive of the so-called independence of Taiwan, the mainland will not have contact with them."
President Chen Shui-bian (
Xie noted a statement made by vice premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛) earlier this year, in which he "welcomed" DPP members visiting China as long as they don't go in their official capacity. DPP officials can visit friends and relatives or go on tours, as long as they are in an "appropriate capacity," Qian said.
In the wide-ranging press conference, Xie's first in at least a year, the spokesman also refuted two US government-sponsored reports which pointed to China's military expansion and warned that the buildup is aimed at threatening an invasion of Taiwan.
Those documents have cast doubt on China's long-professed desire to solve the cross-strait impasse peacefully.
"The Chinese position toward Taiwan has been consistent," Xie said. "That is, peaceful reunification, `one country, two systems.' We hope that the Taiwan authorities will change the present attitude of denying the so-called `one China' policy and to acknowledge the 1992 consensus, stop its splittist activities," he said.
As for the US, Xie called on Washington to stop selling "sophisticated" and "advanced" weapons to Taiwan. He also urged Washington to stop sending "the wrong signals" to Taiwan and to play a role in Taiwan's unification with China.
Xie accused the Chen administration of "going backwards" in cross-strait relations and reiterated that Beijing "will not allow foreign interference" in the Taiwan situation.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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