Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) is to lead a delegation to Shanghai to attend the Shanghai-Taipei Twin-City Forum next week, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, adding that the delegation has been instructed not to participate in any “united front” activities and avoid discussing tourism issues.
The Taipei City Government submitted an application to the National Immigration Agency on Thursday last week for Chiang to attend the forum from Thursday to Saturday next week, MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told the council’s weekly news conference.
The council has issued four crucial reminders to ensure that cross-strait exchanges can proceed in a healthy and orderly manner, Liang said.
Photo: Lin Che-yuan, Taipei Times
First, any document that the delegation signs with Chinese officials during the visit, such as memorandums of understanding, should be handled in accordance with the principles of equality and dignity, while complying with the government’s cross-strait policies and other regulations, Liang said.
Second, the delegation should focus on the exchange of city management experiences and avoid addressing cross-strait tourism issues, which falls under the jurisdiction of the central government, he said.
Third, the delegation is banned from participating in celebratory events of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the “retrocession” of Taiwan, or the founding of the UN, Liang said, adding that it should protect the interests of Taiwan and consider how its words and deeds might be perceived by Taiwanese.
Fourth, any additional meeting with Chinese officials that is not on the itinerary should be reported in advance, he said.
While Chiang might express hope that more Chinese tourists visit Taipei, the government has reiterated that technical issues of cross-strait tourism must be resolved through the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and China’s Association For Tourism Exchange Across The Taiwan Straits, two semi-official associations representing the respective governments, he said.
So far, there has not been any progress on this front, Chiang said, adding that local officials should leave this matter to the central government.
Liang also described a recent statement by Hunan Province Governor Mao Weiming (毛偉民) as “a bit puzzling” when he said that Taiwan has become the second-largest source of tourists for the province, with the number of two-way visitors exceeding 5 million.
Last year, about 2.7 million Taiwanese visited China, while 430,000 Chinese visited Taiwan, Liang said, adding that the number of two-way visitors amounted to about 3.2 million.
Taiwan and China have agreed to allow airlines to charter flights to Changsha, Hunan’s capital, but none have applied to dispatch charter flights so far, Liang said.
The council was also asked to comment on Democratic Progressive Party Secretary-General Hsu Kuo-yung’s (徐國勇) rejection of “Retrocession Day,” saying that then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) only represented the Allies to take over Taiwan, then a trust territory, after WWII.
Liang said that historic facts might be open to different interpretations, but the two documents that Hsu cited to support his points were authentic.
One was issued by the supreme commander for the Allied powers in Japan after the war, asking Japanese troops to surrender at the war zones they were located.
As such, troops in Taiwan and Penghu were supposed to surrender to then-chief executive of Taiwan Chen Yi (陳儀), he said.
The other document, which can still be found at Academic Historica, showed that Chiang Kai-shek did indicate Taiwan’s status as a trust territory before the treaty with Japan was signed, Liang said.
“From the government’s perspective, what matters is that at the time of the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration during WWII, only the Republic of China [ROC] existed — the People’s Republic of China [PRC] had not yet been established,” Liang said. “In Taiwan, the Japanese forces stationed here surrendered to representatives of the ROC, and it was the ROC military that came to Taiwan to take over. This entire process had nothing to do with the PRC.”
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