Taiwan's vice president-elect to have historic meeting with China's president
Vincent Siew will meet with Hu Jintao for 20 minutes on Saturday at forum
It will be the highest-level contact ever between officials of the longtime rivals
Ma succeeds Chen, who steps down after eight years in power
SANYA, China (AP) -- Taiwan's vice president-elect is due to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday in the highest-level contact ever between officials from the longtime rivals.
The historic talks carry the potential of opening a new era in relations between the two, indicating the direction Taiwan-China relations will move toward under a new Taiwanese administration set to take office in May.
Vincent Siew will meet with Hu for 20 minutes on the sidelines of an economic forum in the southern Chinese resort of Boao, Siew's spokesman, Wang Yu-chi, said Friday. No other details were given.
Heading a delegation of Taiwanese business leaders, Siew arrived Friday afternoon in the island province of Hainan where the forum is held each year.
"We will use the occasion to make more friends and exchange views," said Siew, a former premier who has dedicated his years out of office to expanding economic relations with China. "We will present the new blueprint for Taiwan's economic development."
The meeting could be a watershed in relations between the two neighbors, which have alternated between angry threats and icy scorn for the last eight years under Taiwan's independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian.
Siew's future boss, President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, was elected on strong hopes he would boost relations with China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing threatens to attack if the Taiwanese try to formalize their de-facto independent status.
Beijing refuses to recognize the island's elected government, and on Thursday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu referred to Siew only as chairman of the Cross-Strait Common Market Foundation, a private group that seeks to build economic cooperation between China and Taiwan.
Ma and Siew represent the Nationalist Party that ran Taiwan for almost five decades after fleeing the mainland ahead of the communist victory. Despite decades of antagonism, the Nationalists and their former communist foes have opened up a dialogue in recent years, in part out of common opposition to Chen's moves to assert Taiwan's independent identity.
Ma has pledged to liberalize investment rules and launch direct air and maritime links between Taiwan and China. On Friday, Siew had to fly to China via Hong Kong because Taiwan still bans direct flights.
However, the president-elect has been vague on the prospects of improved political ties, saying he hopes to sign a peace agreement but won't discuss unification during his presidency.
On Saturday, Hu and Siew are to attend the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual Chinese government-sponsored event attended by leading businesspeople and a smattering of world leaders.
The forum's secretary-general, former Chinese official Long Yongtu, also confirmed Siew's meeting with Hu, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
However, the president-elect has been vague on the prospects of improved political ties, saying he hopes to sign a peace agreement but won't discuss unification during his presidency.
i wonder if anyone recall, someone making a huge statement about president Ma not a pro-china candidate vs heish.
I dare you to find that statement. However, you may be confusing it with the statement made about how he would NEVER discuss "unification"...which, as you can read above, he won't.
Originally posted by onibattousai: i wonder if anyone recall, someone making a huge statement about president Ma not a pro-china candidate vs heish.
This is a huge step toward improving relationship with China. As China continue to improve itself unification will not be too far away.
A step in the right direction, but “unification” is still a decade or so away (at least). Even when it does happen, Taiwan will undoubtedly retain some sort of Autonomy.
you're right. Unification is not going to happen overnight. However, at least this president is leading Taiwan down the right path.
no one will know what China would or the world turn into next day. However progression takes time. seeing how China is improving comparing them to 50 years ago, one would hope that this continuous improvement would lead them to the right path.
The only territory in the world with the capability to teach China about democracy is Taiwan -- so it's good news that Taiwan is now pushing for closer relations.
...as long as Taiwan stops purposely pissing off China, most of the Communist leadership will be happy to let the whole issue of Taiwan's sovereignty float for decades as long as everybody is making money. That will boost Taiwan's economy, grant China time to change and decrease the possibility that the US will have to go to war to defend Taiwan. This peaceful interim will also give Taiwan time to push China's political system in the right direction.
Like I've been stating all along, as soon as the Chicoms give up "total control" and allow for DEMOCRACY to take hold, and all the freedoms that come with it, then Taiwan would gladly reunify.
I see my message has graduately been rubbing off ya.
I have been saying this all along unification is the only soluntion, however which party will be in control or what shape it will take, will leave it up to the governments.
It seems that Mayor *COUGH*, I mean President Ma is going ahead with the waishengren-backed Guomindang's plan to make closer ties with their CCP nemesis across the strait.
China, Taiwan talks move ahead in Beijing China and Taiwan agreed on Thursday to open representative offices to handle visa issues, despite a lack of diplomatic ties between the two countries, reports here said.
The deal was reached in Beijing during the first formal talks in a decade between the long-time rivals, Taiwan delegation spokesman Pang Jian-guo was quoted saying by local station TVBS.
The offices will be represented by Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation and its mainland counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. Currently visas between the two are handled in Hong Kong.
News of the deal comes as the two rivals began their first formal talks in a decade as part of a rapprochement that is likely to see the development of trade and tourism ties.
With big smiles and a warm handshake, the chief negotiators from each side began the two days of talks in Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse that often serves as China's choice for conducting high-level diplomacy.
"As long as we have mutual trust and understanding... these talks are going to become an important communication mechanism for cross-strait development," chief Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin said before the media was ushered out.
The talks, suspended since the mid-1990s, are resuming as part of a dramatic warming in relations that began with the election of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president in March.
Ma and his Kuomintang party swept to power promising closer ties with China, following eight years of tensions across the straits as then Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian tried to steer the island closer toward independence.
China and Taiwan split at the end of a civil war in 1949, and the mainland's ruling Communist Party ratcheted up threats during Chen's reign that it was prepared to use military force to bring about reunification.
But Ma, who began his term in May, has managed to begin letting some steam out of the pressure-cooker environment between China and Taiwan that made their relationship one of the world's potential military flashpoints.
Agreement to restart the talks was reached when Chinese President Hu Jintao met Kuomintang chief Wu Poh-hsiung in Beijing last month.
That in itself was an historic event, as it was the first meeting between the heads of the ruling parties of each side since Kuomintang forces retreated to the island in 1949 and the communists took power in Beijing.
Direct trade and tourism links have been severely restricted ever since, but this week's talks in Beijing are expected to see some tentative steps towards changing that situation.
One of the top items on the agenda is establishing regular direct flights between the mainland and China.
Except for national holidays, people wanting to travel the less than 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the mainland currently have to make a much longer journey with a stopover in Hong Kong.
Taiwan media reported that the two sides will Thursday discuss establishing 18 direct flights a week between China and Taiwan.
As many as 3,000 Chinese tourists would be allowed to fly to Taiwan a day, under the plans due to be discussed in Beijing that were first published in the Taiwanese press and carried again in China's state-run media on Thursday. Taiwan is pushing for the first of these visitors to arrive on the island on July 4.
Taiwan's chief envoy to the talks, Chiang Pin-kun, also said ahead of the talks that he would raise the issues of starting direct chartered cargo flights and allowing island's financial institutions to operate on the mainland.
Chiang is expected to meet Hu on Friday.
China's official Xinhua news agency said agreements on some of the issues being discussed would be formally reached on Friday, the final official day of the dialogue.
Ma's overtures are seen to be as much about economic issues as political, because closer ties with China would help inject fresh cash and momentum into Taiwan's economy as it battles the US-led global downturn.
The two sides have already built up strong economic links despite the long political freeze. Since 1991, approved Taiwan investment on the mainland has risen by a factor of nearly 60, standing at 9.97 billion dollars in 2007.
