President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday vowed to continue to create favorable conditions so that he will be able meet with Chinese President Xi JInping (習近平), saying the main purpose of such a meeting would be to ensure the continuity of what has been achieved in cross-strait relations since he took office in 2008.
In his first comments on the need for the leaders of Taiwan and China to meet, Ma said he hoped conditions conducive to such a meeting would come to fruition as soon as possible.
“We cannot make a prediction on that for the moment. What we are doing is working hard to create the conditions and hoping they would emerge soon,” he said.
Photo: EPA
Ma made the remarks during a press conference with Taiwanese reporters in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, where he is on the third and last leg of an eight-day trip that began on Thursday last week.
He has never excluded the possibility of meeting with Xi, because such a meeting would necessitate beneficial circumstances that have yet to emerge, he said.
The meeting scheduled for next month in China between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) is necessary, Ma said.
That meeting would be a necessary step and crucial to the continued amelioration of cross-strait relations, Ma said.
It will be the first step toward realizing the goal is where neither Taiwan nor China recognizes each other’s sovereignty, but do not dispute the right of rule over the territory that the respective governments hold, he said.
If such steps are not taken, cross-strait relations could not hope to continue, Ma said.
However, Ma said that the Wang-Zhang meeting would not be a warm-up for a possible meeting between himself and Xi, and that he had not given Wang an assignment to arrange such a get-together.
A meeting with Xi would primarily be to further improve cross-strait relations, and more importantly, to “preserve the results [achieved] so far,” Ma said.
“This is an important aspect of cross-strait relations; we do not wish to see the results lost due to a change in circumstance or a misjudgement in policy,” the president said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and CNA
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