Major Chinese media outlets avoided any mention of the Republic of China (ROC) in reports on Tuesday’s meeting in Beijing between former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
According to Lien’s aides, the former vice president urged Beijing to respect the existence of the Republic of China, but the comment was completed ignored by Chinese media, which were clearly following the lead of Xinhua news agency.
Instead, they stressed Lien’s remark on reinforcing the “one China” framework, under which the two sides deal with each other, and Xi’s statement that Beijing would embrace any Taiwanese who are willing to push for peaceful development across the Strait, regardless of their previous political views.
Citing Chu Jintao (褚靜濤), an expert on Taiwanese affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Beijing News said Lien had played a key role in promoting peace between China and Taiwan.
Chu said Lien has been a catalyst for positive development between Taipei and Beijing since he visited Beijing in 2005 in defiance of heavy political pressure at the time.
Now that the exchanges between the two sides have expanded from the private sector to political parties and officials, it proves that Lien’s contribution was significant, Chu said.
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A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: