People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should rise above their differences and seek cooperation when dealing with foreign affairs, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Wang Yi (王毅) said yesterday, in a call that received a lukewarm response from Taipei.
According to reports by the China-based China News Service, Wang made the remark during his speech at the first Yunnan-Taiwan Economic and Cultural Seminar held in Kunming, China, yesterday.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and former KMT vice chairman Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) attended the symposium.
“More than six decades ago, when the Chinese Expeditionary Force [during the Second Sino-Japanese War] fought against the Japanese aggressors in Western Yunnan, [their fortitude and bravery] were so magnificent and touching that [they] were etched in history and in the common memory of the people on both sides,” Wang said.
Wang said that whatever complex issues lie between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, they should transcend their differences and work together in defending the fundamental and overall interests of the Chinese people.
In the face of the profound international changes, Wang also called on people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to act in the interest of ensuring the prosperity of the Chinese people, ensuring the peaceful development of cross-strait ties and maintaining regional stability.
Wang’s comments came amid an escalating territorial dispute over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), a resource-rich island group in the East China Sea claimed by Taiwan and China, as well as Japan, which calls them the Senkaku Islands. The dispute heated up after the Japanese government paid ￥2.05 billion (US$26 million) for three of the islands in the chain on Tuesday last week in an effort to nationalize the archipelago.
The move prompted an angry rebuke from the Chinese government, which accused Japan of “playing with fire,” galvanizing a new wave of anti-Japan sentiment and demonstrations in several cities across China over the past few days.
However, Wang’s proposal did not appear to be welcome by his Taiwanese counterpart, as Mainland Affairs Council Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) reiterated yesterday her stance on Sept. 9 during a visit to London that Taiwan would not cooperate with China on the issue.
“The Republic of China has indisputable sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands. In light of the long-running sovereignty dispute across the Taiwan Strait, the idea of cross-strait cooperation to resolve the territorial row is unseemly,” Lai 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
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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