Taiwan plans to develop Kinmen County into a “model” area for peaceful exchanges between the two sides of Taiwan Strait, the head of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said on Wednesday.
Although Beijing has suspended talks with Taipei, foundation chairman Tien Hung-mao (田弘茂) said during a visit to Kinmen that cross-strait exchanges and interactions via the “three small links” between Kinmen and China’s Fujian Province are operating normally.
He told local officials that the government would make efforts to develop the county into a “middle point” and “window” for cross-strait contact.
The Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation, a Taipei-based institution that handles cross-strait affairs in the absence of formal ties with China, are planning to make Kinmen “a model area for peaceful cross-strait exchanges,” Tien said.
Cross-strait dialogue was stopped by Beijing after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office on May 20.
Unlike former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Tsai has refused to endorse the so-called “1992 consensus,” which China regards as the political foundation for exchanges between the two sides of the Strait.
Tsai’s administration has faced a series of punitive measures from Beijing, such as a limit on the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan and the suspension of official cross-strait communication mechanisms.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Beijing that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Former former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) said in 2006 that he had made up the term in 2000.
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