BEIJING – The head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Wang Yu-Chi, will meet Zhang Zhijun of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) next month, during February 11 to 14. This will be the first cross-strait meeting of top Chinese and Taiwanese officials in over 60 years. A delegation of more than 20 people will fly to Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, before heading to the commercial center of Shanghai. The meeting location of Nanjing bears historical significance, as it was the former capital of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government before it was forced to flee to Taiwan by Mao Zedong’s Communist party in 1949.
Commentators have touted this meeting as being a “breakthrough” in China-Taiwan relations. Since the end of the civil war in 1949, the Communist party and Kuomintang party have never reached an official peace agreement, and relations between the two sides have been strained ever since. China has not renounced the possibility of using force to “reunify” Taiwan with China.
This meeting will be the first time since 1949 that Mainland and Taiwanese officials will hold talks in person, in their official capacities. It is hoped that the talks will pave the way for future political dialogue and reconciliation between the two governments. Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has said, “The meeting is an important step toward upgrading bilateral relations. This is a step we must take in the development of cross-strait relations,” according to Taiwanese news channel Focus Taiwan. The President did not rule out meeting Chinese leaders himself in the future, if the conditions proved favorable.
For now, the objective is just to sustain the progress made over the past five years on cross-strait relations. In 2008, President Ma came to power, ousting his more pro-independence predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Since that time, the relationship between Taiwan and China has been gradually thawing and economic ties have grown deeper. President Ma was elected for another term in 2012.
President Ma has denied giving Minister Wang any specific mission for the upcoming cross-strait meeting. The meeting will proceed on the basis that neither side will recognize the other’s sovereignty, nor will either side deny the other’s right to govern. Wang confirmed that the trip would not touch on “highly sensitive political issues” at a news conference today.
He added that topics on the agenda will include setting up cross-strait representative offices in both Taiwan and the Mainland, Taiwan’s participation in international bodies and issues on medical care for Taiwan students in the Mainland. The delegation is scheduled to visit the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen (the first president and founding father of the Republic of China, also known as Taiwan), Nanjing University, and Radio and Television Shanghai.
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