In what was seen as a relaxation of its pressure on Taiwan to open up direct cross-strait transport, trade and mail links, a top Beijing official told a visiting Taiwanese delegation that the issue was not an urgent one for China.
Chen Yunlin (
Chen said while China did not feel so much urgency about the matter as it had before, its only concern now was the convenience of Taiwan businessmen traveling between Taiwan and China.
Official statistics show that Taiwanese made over two million trips to China over the past year.
According to a report to be released by the association, one-way flight tickets between Taipei and Shanghai could drop from the present NT$17,000 to around NT$8,000 after direct cross-strait air links were launched.
While a trip from Taipei to Shanghai can take as much as five hours and forty minutes owing to the need to transit via a third region, the traveling time would be shortened to become slightly more than one hour if direct air links were launched, the report estimated.
Meanwhile, Chen said cross-strait shipping and air links could never be considered as such between "two countries." Chen proposed that both sides sit down to negotiate on the topic of "one China." Chen said both Taiwan and China were "part of China," and it remained a subject for discussion as to which side was the true representation of China.
He said Taiwan and China were never "two countries" nor "two Chinese countries," warning of "severe national catastrophe" if Taiwan stuck to such a claim.
This remark was apparently made in response to a proposal put forth by Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), in which she called Taiwan and China "two Chinese countries." Chen said Lu should stop making talk that would hamper the restoration of cross-strait negotiations.
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