Taiwan and China cannot put off addressing their political differences for the long term, Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) said on Friday, adding that sidestepping politics in favor of economic talks was “unsustainable.”
Zhang said that Beijing “has the necessary patience, as well as the strong determination” to bring about Taiwan’s unification with China.
“But that does not mean waiting passively without doing anything,” he said.
Zhang made the comments in a keynote speech at the opening of the first Cross-Strait Peace Forum held in Shanghai, where he called for breakthroughs on “outstanding issues which prevent and restrict cross-strait relations from making further progress.”
He called the forum part of an effort to overcome the obstacles to making greater progress in cross-strait relations.
The Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement later on Friday denying Chang’s contention that Taiwan has sidestepped political issues in favor of economic issues.
Some of the cross-strait agreements that have been forged in the past few years had political aspects, which Taiwan’s government did not shy away from but handled in a pragmatic manner, the council said.
The government believes that “as long as there are urgent issues concerning the interests of people on the two sides, it must deal with them pragmatically,” the council said. “There is no such sidestepping of politics in favor of economics.”
Citing the ongoing cross-strait talks on the establishment of representative offices on either side as an example, the council said that the issues involved in the talks are very complicated, and some of them are politically sensitive.
The two-day forum in Shanghai focuses on four topics: the cross-strait political relationship; China and Taiwan’s external relations, security and mutual confidence; and a framework for peace.
Backing the event are Taiwan’s 21st Century Foundation, the Institute for National Policy Research, and Taiwan Brain Trust, while the Chinese organizers include the National Society of Taiwan Studies, six research institutes at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and universities in Beijing and Xiamen.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS