The Taipei City Government has submitted its list of delegates and travel itinerary for review ahead of this year’s Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum from Sept. 25 to Sept. 27 in Shanghai, China, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday.
The council said it would review the submission in accordance with the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例). Under Article 9 of the act, city mayors and high-ranking civil servants are required to apply for permission to enter China, and applications are to be reviewed by the MAC, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Bureau.
The council’s confirmation followed local news earlier yesterday saying that Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would leave for Shanghai on Sept. 25 to attend the forum, which is to focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and urban governance.
Photo: CNA
Chiang is to attend the forum’s main event on Sept. 26 and is expected to sign two memorandums of understanding before returning to Taiwan on Sept. 27, the report said, citing anonymous sources.
The mayor did not directly confirm whether he would be part of the delegation, but said that the city government had filed the application and would provide further information when available.
The city government’s position is that it conducts exchanges with Shanghai “under the principles of parity, dignity, goodwill and reciprocity,” Chiang said.
The Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum has been held annually since 2010, with the two cities alternating as the host.
In 2023, Chiang headed a delegation of more than 100 people to Shanghai, marking his first attendance at the forum as mayor. Last year, a 92-member delegation led by then-Shanghai vice mayor Hua Yuan (華源) visited Taipei.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Chien Shu-pei (簡舒培) yesterday said that China’s mass military parade last week was not just a threat to Taiwan, but to regional peace.
The KMT is ignoring threats to Taiwan and regional stability, and blindly cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party’s “united front” performance, Chien said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) said that Chiang’s visit to China at this time would reinforce perceptions in the international community that the mayor of Taiwan’s capital holds a pro-China stance.
Meanwhile, KMT Taipei City Councilor Tseng Hsien-ying (曾獻瑩) said that the trip aims to foster a peaceful atmosphere across the Taiwan Strait and to learn about AI in city governance.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Liu Tsai-wei (柳采葳) said the DPP city councilors were criticizing for the sake of criticizing, as the forum would cover a variety of topics, adding that since it is a city-to-city forum, the content would focus on municipal governance.
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