Taiwan's new president calls for reopening of dialogue with China
TAIPEI (AFP) — Taiwan's new President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) party Saturday renewed his call on Beijing to set aside sovereignty disputes and reopen negotiations with the island.
Ma, who took office on May 20, made the remarks two days before KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung flies over for an unprecedented China trip, where he will meet President Hu Jintao.
Wu, who will become the first ruling-party chairman from Taiwan to travel to China, is due to meet Hu in Beijing on Wednesday.
"Mr. Wu can personally explain to the mainland authorities, especially Mr. Hu Jintao, the measures we are taking and our anticipation of the future," Ma said in a meeting with Wu in front of reporters here.
"Some issues are created by history and can hardly be solved in a short period of time... leaders of the two sides should have such a far-sightedness and broad vision that these issues must be set aside temporarily."
The KMT government in Taipei and the ruling communists in Beijing say that they are the sole legal government of the whole of China despite the fact the two sides have been governed separately since 1949 at the end of a civil war.
The rivals last held top-level dialogue in 1995 but China suspended follow-up talks to protest a visit to the US the same year by Taiwan's then-president Lee Teng-hui, which it saw as a move promoting independence.
Ma said the two sides should resume talks under an agreement made in Hong Kong in 1992 to "agree to disagree" over their differing definitions of "one China."
"Thus on the basis of the consensus reached in 1992, the two sides can resume negotiations, and set aside disputes, build up mutual trust and create a win-win situation... these are the common ground from which we should start," Ma said.
Wu's visit will help push forward a thaw in ties, China's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Chen Yunlin, the director of the Beijing agency that deals with Taiwan affairs, as saying last week.
Wu, leading a 16-member KMT delegation, is scheduled to fly Monday to Nanjing, via Hong Kong.
He is scheduled to visit Shanghai on May 29 and a Buddhist temple the following day in the eastern province of Jiangsu to "pray for cross-strait peace and the victims killed by the Sichuan earthquake," a KMT statement said.
Taiwan's top China policy-maker Lai Shin-yuan said Friday that she hopes the two sides will make a priority launching weekend passenger charter and cargo flights as well as allowing more Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan.
Direct transport links have been cut since the two sides split in 1949. Taiwanese wishing to fly to the mainland must transit via somewhere such as Hong Kong, while visits here by Chinese tourists are severely restricted.
Tensions between Taipei and Beijing have shown signs of easing since the KMT trounced the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in March presidential elections.
