Despite China not responding warmly to Taiwan's bid to resume official negotiations, unofficial talks with Chinese officials on opening direct transport and trade links across the Taiwan Strait commenced yesterday shortly after the first legal voyages across it in 52 years.
Continuing a pattern of contacts between China and Taiwanese opposition parties, KMT and New Party lawmakers began talks in Beijing yesterday, bypassing Taiwan's elected president, Chen Shui-bian (
They were to hold discussions with officials from the semi-official Chinese body which handles ties with Taiwan and meet powerful Vice Premier Qian Qichen (
According to KMT lawmaker Her Jyh-huei (
"As long as businessmen discuss [the three links], we can open them up at any time," Her quoted Qian as saying after both had met yesterday afternoon.
Qian, in addition, requested that Taiwan abandon its "special state-to-state" dictum proposed by former president Lee Teng-hui (
The official China Daily billed the talks between China and the opponents of Chen, Beijing's nemesis, as "a major effort to push ahead with the three direct links between China and Taiwan."
Taiwan has so far balked at lifting its 52-year-old ban on such direct ties, but on Tuesday allowed the first legal trip to the Chinese mainland by Taiwan boats since 1949.
China has grudgingly accepted Taiwan's opening of direct links to the mainland from the Taiwan-held island groups of Matsu and Kinmen -- known as the "three small links" (
Delighted at the success of both trips from Kinmen and Matsu, which returned yesterday, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
"To broaden the scope of [direct links], both sides of the strait have to sit down and negotiate. I hope China can respond positively," Chang said at a press conference.
China's grudging support for the symbolic opening of the "small three links" with Taiwan's frontier islands pales in comparison with its enthusiastic embrace of the opposition legislators, who have no authorization to negotiate.
The ban on direct links between China and Taiwan forced the delegations, led by KMT's Her and New Party Legislator Elmer Fung (馮滬祥), to travel to China through Hong Kong. They met officials from the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and Fung presented his hosts with a banner saying "Opening the three cross-Strait links enriches people's lives."
The China Daily hailed them as "pro-unification party delegations" because they want direct links and share Beijing's view that Taiwan is part of China.
But while they want unification, they do not accept union under a Communist regime. They must tread carefully as the Taiwan public has shown in repeated surveys that it prefers the status quo to unification with China.
The Chen government has not answered to Beijing's satisfaction its demand to accept the "one China" principle and says unification with China is not Taiwan's only option.
Today, the opposition delegations are to meet Chinese officials in charge of aviation, trade and posts and telecommunications.
The Taiwan ban on direct trade and travel with China forces most travellers and cargo to transit through Hong Kong. A research note by the US investment bank Salomon Smith Barney yesterday estimated that full trade and travel exchanges between Taiwan and China would damage Hong Kong's tourism and air travel sector.
"If direct air-links are established, Hong Kong could lose about 46 percent of its transient Taiwanese visitors," said the note.
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