Take the egos and the politics out of cross-strait exchanges and focus on what is right and good, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
Tsai said exchanges across the Taiwan Strait should not be dominated by specific political parties and individuals.
“Hopefully, our exchange visit will establish a new model for future engagement ... and both sides [of the Taiwan Strait] should ditch the past model of exchange that was exploited by a selected few with a limited perspective,” she told a press conference.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Tsai was briefing the media about a delegation organized by her Thinking Taiwan Foundation, which had visited China for a five-day academic exchange on economic issues.
The nine-member delegation led by Lin Chuan (林全), executive director of the foundation and a former minister of finance, focused exclusively on trade and economic policy, without the involvement of businesspeople or meetings with Chinese officials, she said.
Tsai said she insisted on “multi-layered, multi-faceted and diverse” bilateral exchanges that were based on professional expertise, rather than political considerations.
However, Tsai reiterated that she currently has no plan to visit China, adding that she would only do so if her visit was beneficial to Taiwanese interests and to cross-strait stability.
Lin said the visit has been “fruitful” and “sincere” in exchanging views and opinions on a variety of economic issues, reiterating that it was a “return visit” for the attendance of two prominent Chinese economists — Bank of China chief economist Cao Yuanzheng (曹遠征) and Ding Zhijie (丁志杰) of the University of International Business and Economics — at an event organized by the foundation in July last year.
The delegation visited 13 institutions, some of them government agencies, and private companies for an insight into the Chinese economy, the challenges it faces and the reform plan that was unveiled in the Chinese Communist Party third plenum, Lin said.
In some ways, China and Taiwan are tackling the same problems, such as industrial upgrades and further market liberalization, he said, adding that China had paid a dear price for its failure to balance economic development and environmental protection.
Experts in the delegation, among them two former Financial Supervision Commission chairmen, Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) and Shih Chun-chi (施俊吉), offered their experience on banking deregulation to their Chinese counterparts, Lin said.
Lin said Chinese academics were also keen to understand more about Taiwan’s economic policy and challenges.
Asked if the Chinese side had brought up the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement and the follow-up trade in goods agreement, which is still under negotiation, Lin said several academics privately asked about it.
“Nothing about the content was mentioned, but we did advise Beijing to understand why the pact has been seen as a serious concern to Taiwanese. We also told them what our concerns are,” Lin said.
Shih summed up the benefits of the trip as discussions and on-site inspection that enabled better understanding of China’s banking policy, macroeconomic policy, the methodology and processing of its statistics and economic accounting, operation of its electronic and communication industry, such as computer manufacturer Lenovo and search engine Baidu, as well as China’s efforts on free-trade zones in Tianjin.
In the question-and-answer session, Tsai was asked about reports of her entering the DPP’s chairperson election in May.
“It’s still too early to tell. I have not given it a lot of thought, but the decision will depend on how the situation develops and evolves,” she said.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but