The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday sent China a Lunar New Year message expressing hope that the COVID-19 outbreak there would soon ease and that the Taiwan Strait would be blessed with peace and stability, which is the shared hope of the two sides.
MAC spokesperson Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) sent the message at a news conference in Taipei, in keeping with a custom among Han Chinese to exchange blessings around the Lunar New Year holiday, which this year begins on Friday next week.
Chiu’s message also had a clear political component: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should recognize and respect Taiwan’s sovereignty, and the democratic values and freedom that Taiwanese hold dear, he said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
He also urged the CCP to change its coercive policies and behavior toward Taiwan, so that cross-strait relations could be improved.
China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan over the past year.
It peaked on Dec. 25 last year, when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army sent 71 planes — the most on any single day last year — and seven warships to areas around Taiwan.
Of the 71 aircraft, 47 either crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, in which all aircraft are required to comply with special identification or reporting procedures.
Chiu responded to a comment on Wednesday by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) that “certain politicians on the island should give up their separatist views of Taiwan independence if they really wanted peace in the Taiwan Strait.”
Chiu said the two sides of the Strait should treat each other with goodwill and a spirit of reconciliation, and that China’s refusal to rule out using force against Taiwan was the source of tension in the Strait.
“The CCP must renounce its coercion of Taiwan before the two sides can have any positive interaction,” Chiu said.
Asked about a remark by TAO Director Sung Tao (宋濤) that called for talks on the “reunification of the country” with unspecified Taiwanese representatives, Chiu said the government welcomes any equal, legal cross-strait exchanges not bound by political frameworks.
The government has repeatedly said it does not allow agencies, civil groups, individuals or political parties to engage in any form of negotiations aimed at furthering Beijing’s “one country, two systems” agenda for Taiwan that seeks to eliminate its sovereignty, Chiu said.
As Taiwan seeks to identify ways to resume cross-strait exchanges, it would step up efforts to uphold national security, he said.
Sung’s call for negotiations with representatives from all quarters of Taiwan was a “united front” tactic aimed at dividing Taiwanese, through which the CCP is trying to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty and democratic system, Chiu said.
Regarding Ma’s statement on Wednesday that China hopes to increase the number of flight routes between Taiwan and China, Chiu said the MAC has inquired about the matter with the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which said it is yet to receive any request from China to add more flight routes.
Chiu suggested that Chinese agencies improve their communications to avoid causing misunderstandings between the Taiwanese and Chinese governments.
The two sides operate more than 200 flights per week on the four air routes allowed by the Chinese government, and airlines can file requests to increase the number of flights if necessary, he said.
Regarding the number of passengers traveling by ferry between Kinmen and Lienchiang counties and China’s Xiamen since China and Taiwan resumed sea travel between the three destinations earlier this month, Chiu said that there were 381 inbound and 235 outbound passengers on the Kinmen to Xiamen route from Saturday last week to Wednesday.
Meanwhile, there were 32 inbound and 43 outbound passengers on the Lienchiang to Xiamen route from Sunday to Wednesday, he said.
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