The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said that one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) objectives in meeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) next week is to “cut off Taiwan’s military procurement from the United States.”
“Trying to cut off Taiwan’s military procurement from the US, as well as Taiwan’s cooperation with other countries, is the objective of this so-called summons,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a regular news briefing in Taipei.
Xi seeks to “internalize” cross-strait issues during the planned meeting, he said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The meeting is expected to take place in Beijing during Cheng’s visit to China from Tuesday to Sunday next week.
News of Cheng’s trip to China emerged on Monday, when the KMT chair told a news conference that she had “gladly accepted” an invitation from Xi — identified in the invitation as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — to visit Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing.
The trip would “show the people of Taiwan and the world one thing — the two sides of the strait are not destined for war, nor do they need to remain on the brink of military conflict,” Cheng said at the time.
Photo: CNA
Liang said that the Chinese authorities had made “clear” their intention to “obstruct this arms sales bill,” likely referring to a NT$1.25 trillion (US $39.1 billion) bill put forth by the Democratic Progressive Party government.
The KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party, which together hold a majority in the Legislative Yuan, have also tabled their own version of the bill on a much smaller scale, and all three versions are under review in the legislature.
“At a time like this, if the CCP can tell the world that the chair of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, which represents half of public opinion in Taiwan, also agrees with its position, that would pose the greatest obstacle to this arms procurement bill,” he said.
Earlier yesterday, Cheng said that Xi had formally extended goodwill and sincerity through the invitation, “which is exactly what cross-strait relations need most right now.”
Such goodwill was also why visiting US senators had publicly welcomed the planned meeting, she said, referring to US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who said that dialogue “is a good thing” during a media event in Taipei late last month.
Shaheen, who visited Taiwan with a US congressional delegation, also urged China to engage in dialogue with leaders across Taiwan’s political spectrum.
Cheng also told reporters that she would be willing to meet with President William Lai (賴清德) and send an important political message of reconciliation between the ruling and opposition parties.
If Taiwan and Beijing could jointly extend major goodwill, there was no reason the KMT and the DPP could not do the same, she said.
Cheng said that she hoped to complete important overseas visits in the first half of the year, including a trip to the US, which she said would take place no later than June.
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