The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) attacked the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration’s handling of cross-strait talks, claiming that its rush to deliver President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign pledge on weekend passenger charter flights and Chinese tourism has ignored a more important need — regular cargo charter flights for Taiwan’s high-tech industry.
Lin Chen-wei (林成蔚), director of the DPP’s International Affairs Department, made the comments came one day after Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said that when Taiwan and China resume cross-strait talks on June 12, the aim will be to complete consultations on the two issues by July.
Launching cross-strait cargo and passenger charter flights and opening up Taiwan to Chinese tourists were treated as a package by the former DPP government when it began talks with Beijing through civil groups in July 2005.
But the KMT government has delinked cargo charter flights from the passenger flights and Chinese tourism, which Ma had said would commence on July 4.
In a letter from China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait to the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Thursday, Beijing said it accepted Taiwan’s invitation to hold cross-strait negotiation on weekend passenger charter flights and opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists. It invited SEF representatives to visit Beijing from June 11 to June 14.
Lin said the KMT government had given up its right to set the agenda for resuming talks, which had led to the cargo charter flight issue being excluded from the talks.
“President Ma should clearly explain why the cargo charter flights service was not included in the upcoming negotiations,” Lin said.
“The KMT let Beijing completely dominate the resumption of the official cross-strait talks just so that Ma’s promise could come true on July 4,” he said.
Lin, who served as a member of the National Security Council’s Advisory Committee under the DPP government, said the DPP administration had linked cargo charter flights with passenger charters and Chinese tourism because Beijing had been refusing to give ground on cargo charters.
China does not want to launch cross-strait cargo charter flights services now because Taiwan excels in air cargo while China is still building its air cargo fleet and equipment capacity, so it does not want to see Taiwanese firms gain a monopoly in the sector, Lin said.
The cargo charter flight service is what China-based Taiwanese businesspeople and foreign businesspeople in Taiwan, especially those in the high-tech industries, “desperately need” because such service would reduce transportation costs and facilitate logistics, Lin said.
The KMT government should clearly explain whether the rights of Taiwanese companies would be sacrificed in its rush to fulfill Ma’s campaign pledges, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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