The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday expressed its expectation that China's new leaders would take on new ways of thinking and acting when handling cross-strait affairs.
China is completing a leadership transition as well as restructuring its government during the two-week National People's Congress, which started last Wednesday.
"We hope that -- once the Chinese authorities have completed the placement of new government officials -- the new set of relevant leaders will face and handle various cross-strait issues with new thinking and act with little delay to resume dialogue and normalize interaction," council Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tong (
Chen made the remarks in response to media inquiries about Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao's (
Hu, who is slated to succeed President Jiang Zemin (
Hu's four points were: "holding fast to the `one China' principle, promoting cross-strait economic and cultural interaction, implementing guiding principals to win the hearts of Taiwan's public and effecting cross-strait brotherhood for the great task of reviving the Chinese nation."
Chen said that Hu's comments regarding Taiwan contained no major changes, and were derived from Beijing's usual stance on Taiwan.
Commenting on President Chen Shui-bian's (
"However, amelioration of cross-strait relations is not just expressing goodwill, but also ought to be concrete action," he said.
"In an attempt to build a framework of interaction for cross-strait peace and stability, we should therefore implement dialogue about issues such as trade and economy, direct transportation and so forth to further bilateral economic and cultural interaction," he said.
Chen Ming-tong also called on Beijing to stop resisting negotiation with Taiwan but rather to sit down for bilateral talks without setting any kind of preconditions.
RSS