Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is to lead a student delegation to China from Saturday to June 27, the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation said today in a news release.
While there, Ma is to attend the Straits Forum in Xiamen on Tuesday next week and lead students from the foundation’s Da Jiu Academy to participate in cultural promotional activities, such as an offering ceremony for Fu Hsi (伏羲), foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said.
Hsiao compared the plan to an event last year, in which Ma led students from academy to venerate the Yellow Emperor (黃帝, Huangdi).
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
During that visit, students deeply felt what it meant to be descendants of the Yellow Emperor and appreciated the common genealogy of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Hsiao said.
Fu Hsi and the Yellow Emperor are two mythical figures in Chinese folklore that are the ancestors of Han people.
Hsiao said that in addition to Ma and himself, former Presidential Office director Wang Kuang-tzu (王光慈) and National Chengchi University professor Chiu Kun-shuan (邱坤玄) would also attend.
The more tense cross-strait relations are, the more important it is to communicate, Hsiao said.
Amid the US tariff war and changing global situation, it is even more important to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, he said.
Ma is doing his best to promote cross-strait exchanges and provide an avenue for both sides to communicate, Hsiao added.
In the past two years, Ma has led Taiwanese students to China three times and invited Chinese students and teachers to visit Taiwan twice, Hsiao said.
These exchanges are an important way to reduce hostility across the Strait and show the world that there are still those in Taiwan who hope for peace, Hsiao added.
During an exchange last year, a visiting Chinese student made an inappropriate remark by calling Taiwan “Chinese Taipei,” which the Mainland Affairs Council said would result in the foundation being blocked from inviting Chinese groups to Taiwan.
Democratic Progressive Party spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) called on Ma to stand for Taiwan's sovereignty and not cooperate with Chinese President Xi Jinping's (習近平) “united front” designs.
Media have reported that Xi has repeatedly invited Ma to the cross-strait summit and desires a third meeting with the former president to promote “united front” efforts, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has urged him not to go to avoid political backlash, Wu said.
Chinese military and cultural intimidation of Taiwan is as intense as it has ever been, Wu said, calling on Ma to “stand on the side of Taiwan’s sovereignty” and not cooperate with Xi.
Additional reporting by CNA
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