Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) thanked Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday for pursuing formal cross-strait talks, adding that he hoped the KMT would help the administration take up political issues that the SEF is not authorized to discuss.
Chiang, who also serves as KMT vice chairman, will visit China from Wednesday to June 14 to hold talks with Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
The talks — the first formal cross-strait negotiations since 1999 — will address two issues: cross-strait charter and cargo flights and opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists.
Chiang ascribed Beijing’s willingness to hold the negotiations to Wu’s six-day visit to China last week.
With the assistance of the KMT, the SEF pledges to improve cross-strait relations, Chiang told a meeting of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee at the party’s headquarters.
“The SEF and the KMT can complement each other in improving cross-strait relations. The KMT-Chinese Communist Party [CCP] platform will help strengthen the consensus between the two sides,” Chiang said.
ARATS accepted Chiang’s request for negotiations one day after Wu met with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on May 28.
Chiang said that the SEF would focus on the two issues authorized by the Mainland Affairs Council.
“The two sides are reaching a consensus on implementing weekend charter flights and hopefully this trip will finalize the deal,” he said.
The government hopes to improve cross-strait relations by first broaching less contentious issues, such as economic exchanges, Chiang said. The KMT-CCP platform established by former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) during his 2005 visit to China can help broach more controversial issues, Chiang said.
Wu said that the KMT-CCP platform would function to facilitate and stabilize cross-strait relations, while promising that the KMT would not usurp the SEF’s authority.
“We will play a proper role in cross-strait issues, knowing that only the SEF and ARATS are authorized to sign legal documents regarding cross-strait items,” Wu said.
The meeting between Hu and Wu was the first direct contact between heads of the KMT and CCP since before the Chinese Civil War. Wu and Hu touched on weekend charter flights and tourism during their meeting, but the SEF and ARATS are to negotiate the details.
Meanwhile, in response to criticism over Wu’s recent comment that it was unlikely Beijing would launch a missile attack against Taiwan, KMT Mainland Affairs Division director Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) said the party believed that China would not launch any missiles during President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS