Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) yesterday dismissed media reports that there were political reasons behind the selection of Chongqing as the location for inking the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).
Chiang also dismissed media speculation that the signing of the ECFA was deliberately timed to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the signing of Hong Kong’s Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with China.
“We’ve hoped to complete the signing of important agreements in the first half of the year,” Chiang said.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Monday reported on the choice of Chongqing as the venue for the signing. It was the then-Chinese Nationalist Party administration’s (KMT) provisional capital during its war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before the KMT fled to Taiwan and it was where the two once signed a peace agreement. The report said the selection of Chongqing as the location to sign the ECFA suggested the KMT agreed with the CCP’s stance that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are awaiting “reunification.”
Dismissing the report during a trip to a historic pottery town with Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) on Monday afternoon, Chiang said Chongqing CCP Secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙來) previously invited him to hold the fifth round of cross-strait talks in Chongqing.
“I thought we, the guests, might as well follow the host’s wishes,” Chiang said, adding that the choice did not have any special political significance.
Chiang later yesterday met with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅), who described the signing of the ECFA between Taiwan and China yesterday a major development and a milestones in the development of cross-strait peace.
Wang congratulated Chiang on the signing and told him and other SEF officials that the ECFA is expected to help both sides across the Taiwan Strait improve their competitiveness.
Wang and Chiang held a closed-door meeting after Wang finished his opening remarks.
Chiang is also to meet Bo this morning after the SEF and ARATS delegates plant memorial trees in a botanical garden. Chiang and his entourage are to wrap up their stay in China and return to Taipei this evening.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard