The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said its chairman is still planning to visit China, despite misgivings about cross-strait exchanges after Beijing on Thursday announced the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with the Gambia.
Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) is scheduled to make a 10-day visit to China early next month, the semi-official body set up to handle exchanges in the absence of official ties said.
Lin’s itinerary was on Wednesday sent to the SEF’s Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), the foundation said, adding that it has yet to receive a response from the association, but there should be no changes.
Lin is scheduled to travel to Xiamen, China, and take part in activities involving Taiwanese businesspeople there, while the ARATS is expected to send officials to accompany Lin based on past practice, the SEF said.
Whether there are to be changes on the part of China remains to be seen, but Lin’s visit is still being planned, it added.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said in the legislature on Friday that China alerted the council about its re-establishment of diplomatic ties with the Gambia early on Thursday, but he was unable to connect with his counterpart, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), through a hotline set up by the two sides not long ago.
However, Hsia said that except for the hotline, all other channels of communication are open.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Gambia issued a joint statement on Thursday, saying that they had re-established official relations after 21 years.
The Gambia had diplomatic ties with Taiwan until 1974, when it switched to Beijing.
In 1995, the African nation severed diplomatic relations with China and switched back to Taiwan, but in November 2013 it unilaterally decided to again break diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The country then sought to re-establish formal ties with Beijing, but was rejected until recently.
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