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.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
DANGEROUS DRIVERS: The proposal follows a fatal incident on Monday involving a 78-year-old driver, which killed three people and injured 12 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said it would lower the age for elderly drivers to renew their license from 75 to 70 as part of efforts to address safety issues caused by senior motorists. The new policy was proposed in light of a deadly incident on Monday in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽), in which a 78-year-old motorist surnamed Yu (余) sped through a school zone, killing three people and injuring 12. Last night, another driver sped down a street in Tainan’s Yuching District (玉井), killing one pedestrian and injuring two. The incidents have sparked public discussion over whether seniors