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.
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