Seeking to mend fences with China, Taiwan yesterday renewed its call for resumption of dialogue across the Taiwan Strait, saying that talks could help to defuse the tension between the two sides.
"Maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait has been at the top of my agenda since I took office last May," President Chen Shui-bian (
A recent series of diplomatic skirmishes, notably the sale of advanced arms by the US to Taiwan and the visit of former president Lee Teng-hui (
PHOTO: AP
He made the remarks while paying a visit to Li Yuan-zu (
In a recent interview with a Hong Kong newspaper, The Economic Journal (香港信報), Chen reiterated that he is willing to work with Chinese leaders to promote the welfare of the people on both sides of the strait.
"I would welcome a visit by [Chinese] President Jiang Zemin (
He said that China had misread the will of the people of Taiwan during the presidential election last year and that to date its leaders had apparently not yet corrected their misjudgment.
Echoing Chen's conciliatory message, Koo, chief of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), urged Beijing to put political disputes on the back burner and seek to bridge bilateral differences through talks.
"Eight years have passed since the Koo-Wang talks in Singapore," noted Koo. "We must cherish time, as we are not young."
The historic meeting yielded a number of accords whereby the SEF and China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) agreed to address disputes arising from civilian exchanges through formal dialogue.
Beijing angrily shut down talks with Taipei in July 1999 after then-president Lee characterized bilateral ties as "special state to state." It has refused to deal with the DPP-led government which took office on May 20 last year, suspicious of the pro-independence clause in the DPP's party platform.
Koo, 84, said that the agreements reached by the two sides in 1992 did not include the so-called "one China" principle that defines Taiwan as part of the Chinese state as Beijing has claimed.
"What both sides agreed on is that they could disagree on the issue," he added. "The lack of consensus lends support to the necessity for dialogue."
He again invited Wang to visit Taiwan and said he was willing to visit China to break the ice. Koo traveled to China in October 1998 in a bid to bring about a thaw in relations, and his ARATS counterpart promised to make a reciprocal trip to Taiwan but later canceled his plans.
Across the Strait, Wang spurned the olive branch, stating that no talks could resume unless Taiwan bowed to the "one China" claim.
"The Taiwan authorities say they respect the Koo-Wang talks ... but use all kinds of excuses to negate or distort the consensus reached by the two sides," Wang said in a statement.
But Koo said that his invitation remains valid always, adding that the two sides will have to make contact after their accessions to the WTO later this year.
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