China’s positive response to Taiwan’s call for a truce among expatriates from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will contribute to the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official said yesterday.
KMT Deputy Secretary-General Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) made the remarks after Wang Yi (王毅), director of the Taiwan Affairs Office under China’s State Council, said in Los Angeles the previous day that cross-strait relations had taken a historic turn for the better over the past year.
At a meeting with community leaders at China’s Consulate General in Los Angeles, Wang said the concept of “a truce and no attrition of resources” on the diplomatic front could also be applied to expatriates. From now on, Wang said, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should end their confrontation in dealing with the affairs of expatriates.
“Wang’s statements mark the latest expression of China’s attitude toward expatriate affairs,” Chang said yesterday in Taipei, adding that Wang’s remarks symbolize Beijing’s positive response to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) recent appeal for a truce between Taiwanese and Chinese expatriate groups.
Chang said Taiwan had benefited from the cross-strait diplomatic truce over the past year and that the two sides of the Strait should expand this conciliatory approach to the expatriate front.
Since Ma assumed office in May last year he has advocated a “modus vivendi” diplomatic strategy aimed at paving the way for a cross-strait diplomatic truce.
“This kind of detente should be extended to expatriate communities around the world,” Chang said, adding that the goodwill strategy would spare expatriates from taking sides and could instead promote exchange and harmony between expatriate groups, as well as help cross-strait peace.
Chang said the decades-long cross-strait confrontation on the expatriate front had a very complex background, but that he believed the hostility could be gradually resolved in a pragmatic manner.
“Both sides could start by shelving disputes and forging mutual trust, gradually working more closely together to sort out measures for peaceful co-existence, “ he said, adding that such a truce would help create a situation that would benefit both sides of the Strait.
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