Cross-strait relations are not international relations, former vice president and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said yesterday, adding that over the past year, the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have both made it clear that the development of cross-strait relations should progress under the “one China” framework (一中架構).
Lien made the remarks while meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.
The four-day visit by Lien, who arrived on Monday, follows the first government-to-government talks between Taiwan and China in more than six decades.
Xi said last week’s high-profile meeting between the top cross-strait policymakers from Taiwan and China was an “actively significant” development.
Xi said the Feb. 11 meeting between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) resulted in agreements on several issues and obtained positive results.
In an apparent nod to the political sensitivities of China-Taiwan encounters, a Xinhua news agency report described Xi by his party title of “general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee,” rather than as the country’s president.
Similarly, Lien was described as “KMT Honorary Chairman” and not as a former vice president of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Wang was quoted by a KMT lawmaker in Taipei yesterday as saying the time is “not ripe” for an unprecedented cross-strait leaders’ summit at either of the regional forums to be held in China in October this year and in April next year.
Citing Beijing’s position on the issue, Wang ruled out any meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Xi at the Boao Forum on China’s Hainan Island next year, which had been suggested by some Chinese academics and Taiwanese media commentators.
The APEC forum in Beijing in October had also been suggested by Taiwan officials as an appropriate setting for a Ma-Xi meeting.
However, Zhang on Monday said in Beijing that it was better not to talk in international settings about matters related to the two sides.
Meanwhile, People First Party Legislator Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said that during Wang’s briefing of lawmakers yesterday about his first official trip to China last week, Wang sidestepped a question about the goals of the proposed meeting.
On the issue of each side allowing long-term postings of reporters on the other side, Wang said no consensus had been reached.
Taiwan is attaching the condition that China stop blocking Taiwan-based Web sites, but the Chinese side has reservations about that, Wang told Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and other lawmakers during the briefing.
The plan is to first make it easier for reporters to live in the city to which they are posted — usually for six-month periods, Wang was quoted as saying.
Additional reporting by AFP
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS