A consultative committee of the Mainland Affairs Council has urged the government to launch a “track two” dialogue with China in a bid to further exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
The suggestion was made at the first meeting of the committee since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office on May 20.
At the meeting, the attendees voiced concerns about the stalemate in exchanges between Taiwan and China since Tsai took office.
Cross-strait ties have been imbued by a sense of uncertainty following Tsai’s reluctance to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The “1992 consensus” — a term former council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Participants said that China’s internal political factors and economic conditions have also affected exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
The council said attendees at the meeting suggested that in addition to the current official dialogue platform, invitations should be extended to think tanks and academics across the Taiwan Strait to hold talks in a bid to facilitate cross-strait dialogue.
China is still pushing for exchanges in the private sector and is reaching out to young Taiwanese, attendees said.
Council Deputy Minister Lin Cheng-yi (林振義) said that the government continues to monitor cross-strait ties and would implement any measures needed to adapt to the challenge of the relationship.
Lin said that the government is determined to keep all communication channels open and to maintain the existing dialogue mechanism and would keep its China policy consistent, predictable and sustainable.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS