In response to repeated calls from foreign businesspeople for the government to implement direct cross-strait links, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday urged them to help bring Beijing to the negotiating table with Taipei.
Council Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said businesspeople focus on making money but tend to overlook the overall impact that launching direct links may have.
Chiu thanked the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (AmCham) and the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (ECCT) for their opinions on the three direct links -- transportation, trade and post -- but added the government had to consider the damage they may cause.
"Our government has done a lot of research to map out cross-strait policies. We are also working on supportive measures for these policies," Chiu said at a seminar entitled "Cross-strait Social Development" co-hosted by the council and National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of National Development.
Chiu delivered the opening speech for the seminar on behalf of MAC Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). Two academics from Nanking were invited as speakers to the seminar.
"We hope AmCham and the ECCT can help us persuade Bei-jing to remove some of the barriers it set in the way of cross-strait talks ... The thing is that Taiwan alone cannot conduct negotiations with China even though it is already well prepared," Chiu said.
China also needs to work out details about how to reopen talks with Taiwan, the official said.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said in his inaugural speech that Taiwan and China can promote trade and cultural exchanges, Chiu said, "but so far Beijing has not given us the kind of response that we expected."
However, Chiu said, Beijing has hinted that it wishes that the two sides can resume negotiations conducted by its semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and its local counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation.
"That's why Chairman Wu, after talking to Premier Yu Shyi-kun, decided to invite ARATS Chairman Wang Daohan (
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia James Kelly said on Wednesday that Taiwan and China are still a long away from negotiations. In response, Chiu said if it was difficult for governments on both sides to talk, they might authorize private organizations to conduct negotiations.
"President Chen hopes Taiwan and China can send envoys to each other's capitals so that they can communicate directly. That would reduce a lot of misunderstanding between us," Chiu said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS