Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) yesterday met with China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) in Taipei, and said he looked forward to working closely with him.
It was the first time the two men had met, with both addressing each other with their official titles; Chen referring to Wang as “Minister Wang.”
Chen and his delegation arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday for the 10th round of cross-strait negotiations. He and Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) yesterday signed agreements on meteorological and seismic data sharing.
“The signings will make a great contribution to improving people’s safety across the Taiwan Strait, and we expect to continue promoting cross-strait relations under the 1992 consensus,” Wang said during the meeting.
Citing his earlier meeting with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), in the Chinese city of Nanjing, Wang said that the communication channel between the MAC and TAO will not affect that of the SEF and the ARATS. The extra channel is complementary, rather than adversarial he added.
Chen agreed that the consensuses reached during the Wang-Zhang meeting would have a positive influence on development across the Taiwan Strait.
Typhoon Champi is forecast to turn northward earlier than previously expected, sparing Taiwan a direct hit but still bringing heavy rain to the north of the country on Friday and Saturday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Typhoon Champi had strengthened and increased in size over the past 12 hours, and as of yesterday afternoon, was packing sustained winds of 198kph near its center, CWA forecaster Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭傑仁) said. However, due to the weakening of a Pacific high-pressure system the storm is now expected to turn northward earlier than initially forecast, likely around Japan’s Ishigaki Island, Cheng said. As Champi brushes
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