Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday that he would welcome Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) to visit Taiwan.
Liu’s comments came after Wen said he would like to make a trip to Taiwan.
“Taiwan is China’s treasure island,” Wen said at a press conference in Beijing yesterday following a meeting of the 11th National People’s Congress.
If allowed, he said he would visit the popular scenic spots of Alishan and Sun Moon Lake.
“Although I am 67 years old, I would like to [visit Taiwan] if possible. I would like to go even if I can’t walk and I have to crawl,” Wen said.
Asked about Wen’s comments by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator John Wu (吳志揚) during a question-and-answer session, Liu said: “I would be happy to see [the development], but we need to make the plan cautiously.”
“The higher the rank of the Chinese officials, the more careful we have to be,” Liu said.
Asked whether he in turn would like to visit China, Liu said that he had no plan to do so at this time. But as premier, he would be willing to visit China if Taiwan needed him and if conditions permitted.
Nevertheless, Liu said, such a matter would have to be discussed under the right circumstances.
“Currently, there is no such plan and neither is it the right environment for that,” he said.
Taiwan prohibits visits to China by high-ranking officials, public servants and police officers with access to national security information.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
Singapore is to allow imports of Taiwanese raw pork for the first time in 15 years, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The Singapore Food Agency has approved imports of fresh pork produced by New Taipei City-based Cha I Shan Foods, which had obtained a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from the ministry to export to Singapore, it said. The ministry said it had hoped Singapore would permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports in addition to processed pork products. Singapore agreed to accept Taiwanese fresh pork after completing a document review and a virtual tour of Cha I Shan Foods’ packing
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said the city “does not tolerate violence” after the Taipei City Council reported death threats over a planned screening today of a documentary on alleged forced organ harvesting in China. The council’s report follows a flurry of similar threats targeting theaters and institutions screening the documentary, titled State Organs, which accuses Chinese officials of harvesting organs from incarcerated dissidents and Falun Gong members. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors who planned to screen the film told a news conference earlier yesterday that the organizers of the screening had received a threat of a knife attack signed
RSS