Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) highlighted the “one China” framework and the urgency of resolving the cross-strait political division so it would not be “passed on from generation to generation” in his meeting with former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) yesterday in Bali, Indonesia, ahead of the annual APEC summit.
“The longstanding political division between the two sides will have to be eventually resolved step-by-step as it should not be passed on generation after generation ... We have reiterated that we are willing to engage in reciprocal negotiations on bilateral political issues with Taiwan under the ‘one China’ framework,” Xi was quoted as saying in a 30-minute closed-door meeting with Siew.
Taiwan and China should insist on walking the right path of peaceful development of cross-strait relations and advocate the concept that “both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait are of one family,” Xi added.
Photo: CNA
Siew — who represented President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his capacity as chairman of the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation in the meeting, held before the two-day official leaders’ summit begins today — and Xi referred to each other as “Mister” rather than by any official title in their opening remarks, the only part of their meeting that was open to the media.
Siew underlined the so-called “1992 consensus” as the foundation of bilateral negotiations in the past five years since Ma took office and called for strengthening and deepening cross-strait engagement, including institutionalized economic cooperation and participation in regional economic integration, according to a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) press release issued yesterday afternoon.
Separately yesterday, MAC Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and his Chinese counterpart, Taiwan Affairs Office Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), addressed each other by their official titles in a meeting that took place on the APEC sidelines.
The council has never sent its minister to the annual summit and has been an invisible presence in past summits as it only dealt with preparatory works.
Wang and Zhang briefly interacted at the hotel lobby where the meeting was held and greeted each other by their official titles of minister and director.
Both Wang and Zhang called for the establishment of a regular dialogue mechanism between their two agencies to enhance mutual understanding and facilitate cross-strait engagement.
Zhang invited Wang to visit China, adding that he would be more than pleased to make a visit to Taiwan “if given a chance.”
“As those responsible for cross-strait relations, we should increase interaction to boost mutual understanding and promote bilateral ties,” Zhang said.
When people on both sides of the Strait are visiting each other so frequently, “it does not seem right” that the two top officials in charge of cross-strait affairs do not see each other, Zhang said.
“It would be fruitful for us to keep up with the popular trend,” he added.
Wang echoed the sentiment, saying that Taiwanese lawmakers’ delay in approving a cross-strait service trade pact indicates that there are many outstanding bilateral issues that need to be addressed.
The MAC said in a statement later yesterday that Wang and Chang’s addressing each other by their official titles “marked a good beginning for bilateral official engagement.”
“It was a practice of both sides’ pragmatism and mutual non-denial,” the statement said.
However, China’s Xinhua news agency still referred to Wang as “Taiwan’s official responsible for Mainland affairs” on its Web site yesterday.
The Presidential Office did not respond to Xi’s remarks.
Additional reporting by Peng Hsien-chun and CNA
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS