A summit between top leaders from Taiwan and China this year could be the No. 1 highlight in the development of relations between the two sides, said a Chinese expert on Taiwan affairs, who added that a meeting’s likelihood was “increasing ceaselessly.”
Ni Yongjie (倪永傑), deputy director of the Shanghai-based Institute of Taiwan Studies, made his forecast in an article on Tuesday, which was carried by Beijing media.
The forecast came on the heels of a statement by Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) that this year’s APEC leaders’ meeting in China would be an “appropriate occasion” for such a meeting.
In spite of Taiwan’s insistence that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would have to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in his capacity as president of the Republic of China, Ni said it would be “most natural” for Ma to meet Xi as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), or as the top leader of the Taiwan region.
When they do meet, the two can call each other “brother” — “Brother Ying-jeou” and “Brother Jinping” — as a way of demonstrating the closeness of the relationship between the people of Taiwan and China under the principle that “blood is thicker than water,” Ni added.
Assuming it occurs, the meeting would be a “historic event that shakes the world, that changes cross-strait relations, that changes China and even influences the entire world,” Ni said.
Ni said there would be “four highlights” for cross-strait ties this year, with the Ma-Xi meeting ranked first. Second on the list was a scheduled meeting between Wang and Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), which Ni said would herald “major political interactions between Taiwan and China.”
Ni said Wang and Zhang would likely broach a Ma-Xi meeting, though Wang has denied that the subject would be on the agenda.
The third highlight predicted by Ni was the establishment of a China office by the Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and one in Taiwan by the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits.
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
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS