The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) have agreed to allow KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to visit China, a Hong Kong daily said yesterday.
"Chinese authorities have agreed in principle to the idea of Lien Chan ... visiting China in June this year," a Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily quoted "reliable sources" as saying.
The report comes amid the media hype surrounding the visit of a 30-member KMT delegation headed by party Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) on a self-proclaimed "ice-breaking journey" to China.
Chiang yesterday held a meeting in Beijing with Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of China's State Council, that marked the first of such meetings between the two former rival parties 56 years after 1949, when the KMT was militarily defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war. The meeting was reportedly focusing on economic cooperation and cross-strait exchanges.
"We have openly reiterated many times that we are willing to talk with any Taiwan representatives, groups or parties, who accept the 92 `consensus' and oppose Taiwan's independence," Chen said during the meeting.
Chen Yunlin said the meeting covered issues including importing agricultural products from Taiwan, resuming exportation of fishermen to Taiwan, cross-strait insurance and monetary exchanges, regular cross-strait flights on the weekend and holidays and direct cargo flights.
The trip has been touted by the KMT as the first contact between party leaders since the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949. According to the Ming Pao, KMT Legislator Chu Feng-chih (朱鳳芝), a member of the KMT delegation, revealed that if the current trip was successful and if Beijing extended goodwill, Lien's proposed trip to China might be possible in June.
The Ming Pao reported that there was a tacit agreement reached last year that Lien would visit China prior to assuming the presidency if he won the election, and that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) would meet him in person. The plan was dropped after Lien lost the election.
Meanwhile, Chiang visited the tomb of party founder Sun Yat-sen yesterday, laying a wreath at Sun's mausoleum outside Nanjing, the Nationalists' former capital. Both the CCP and the KMT revere Sun as leader of the 1911 revolution that ended imperial rule and created a Chinese republic.
"My heart was filled with limitless excitement and deep emotion," Chiang said. "It was very moving to visit."
Chiang's visit comes amid a surge in tensions over China's "Anti-Secession" Law. Chiang also visited the former Nationalist presidential office, where he signed a guestbook with the phrase "ice-breaking journey."
Both the KMT and the communists see his five-day trip as sealing a reconciliation. They have found common cause in uniting Taiwan with China and their dislike for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Meanwhile, Chinese academics yesterday said in Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po that the time was not yet "ripe" for chairman of the National People's Congress' Standing Committee Wu Bangguo (吳邦國) to visit Taiwan, but said that Taiwan was taking the initiative in cross-strait relations by paying visits to China.
KMT Legislative Speaker Wang Jing-pyng had proposed sending a delegation to China to invite his Chinese counterpart to Taiwan on Tuesday.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat