Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) yesterday said that any further breakthroughs between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will have to be achieved “slowly, one step at a time.”
Previously, China referred to the council by all kinds of alternative names, but it used the title “Mainland Affairs Council” for the first time during Wang’s visit last week, he said in a radio interview.
“This is progress, a breakthrough,” he said.
Photo: CNA
Wang said that other breakthroughs achieved during his four-day visit included his public reference to the Republic of China (ROC) and the use of his official title on a card attached to a wreath presented at ROC founding father Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) mausoleum in Nanjing.
Wang said that the proposal to hold a presidential summit between the two sides during the Beijing-sponsored Boao Forum for Asia will have to be studied.
He gave that assessment after the Chinese government ruled out the possibility of such a summit taking place at the APEC forum in Beijing in November.
China does not deem it appropriate for the leaders from each side of the Taiwan Strait to meet in an international setting such as the APEC forum, so the possibility of them meeting at that time is not high, Wang said.
Wang added that he would ask former vice president and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to raise the issue of officials’ right to visit detainees on the opposite side during his visit to China.
Lien left for Beijing yesterday.
The two sides have in principle reached an agreement to set up reciprocal representative offices, but there are still differences over Taiwan’s request that officials of its proposed representative office in China be allowed to visit Taiwanese detainees there, and vice versa.
Lien, who chairs the Lien Chan Foundation for Peace and Development, is leading a delegation of business and KMT officials on a four-day visit, during which they will attend a forum and exchange ideas with their counterparts in China.
Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing (范麗青) yesterday said in Beijing that Lien will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is also general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
It will be Lien’s second meeting with Xi in as many years.
Lien’s visit will be meaningful for the expansion and deepening of exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and will be beneficial to enhancing mutual understanding between the two sides, Fan said, lauding Lien for making significant contributions to promoting the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
In 2005, Lien became the first top KMT leader to visit China since 1949. Since then, he has maintained warm relations with top CCP leaders, including Xi’s predecessor former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Fan said.
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 —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats