Beijing gave unusual VIP treatment to Taiwanese business leaders yesterday, underscoring its warm relations with the nation's investors just a day after announcing the arrest of 24 Taiwanese spies.
About 70 China-based investors, all heads of Taiwan chambers of commerce in provinces and cities across China, descended on Beijing for an impromptu closed-door meeting at the invitation of the Cabinet's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office.
Delegates were met at the airport by Chinese officials, an unusual gesture.
"We were escorted through the airport VIP channel," said one delegate who spoke on condition of anonymity before the one-day meeting.
The meeting focused on China's desire for Taiwan to lift a decades-old ban on direct air and shipping links, delegates said.
Chinese officials made no mention of the espionage scandal, but warned against moves toward independence.
"There is a prerequisite for the peace and stability of relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. That is, the Taiwan side must not always be going for Taiwan independence," Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), head of the Taiwan Affairs Office, told the meeting.
"It must stop splittist activities. Otherwise, it will endanger the immediate interests of Taiwan compatriots and people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait," Chen added.
Analysts said China was keen to woo Taiwanese investors despite tensions and rhetoric as part of efforts to lure the country back to the fold.
"This is to buy over the hearts of Taiwanese businessmen," an analyst from Taiwan, who asked not to be identified, said of the meeting.
"Chinese officials personally went to the airport to greet the heads of Taiwan chambers of commerce. Such high-standard treatment is rare."
Yesterday's meeting came on the heels of the arrest of 24 alleged spies from Taiwan and 19 Chinese accomplices, one of the biggest espionage scandals in China's Communist era.
China's official Xinhua news agency announced the arrests on Wednesday but gave scant details of the accusations against them.
Taiwanese and Hong Kong media said Taiwanese businessmen were among those arrested, but Minister of Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) said yesterday that none of those names worked for his ministry, a spokesman said.
Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
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