Beijing yesterday rejected Taiwan
leader Chen Shui-bian's call for unconditional talks with President
Hu Jintao
at a neutral location, saying any such talks should be held on "our
own soil."
"The Taiwan question is an internal matter, so any such meeting
should take place on our own soil," said Li Weiyi, spokesman for
the State Council's Taiwan
Affairs Office.
He also stressed that any possible Hu-Chen meeting should be based
on the One-China principle.
The comments, made at a regular press conference, were in response
to Chen's recent suggestion that talks with Hu could take place
somewhere other than the mainland or Taiwan, preferably the United
States. Chen also insisted there be no preconditions for
talks.
Li said the mainland is willing to talk with any Taiwanese
political party or representative as long as they uphold the
one-China principle.
Since taking office in May 2000, Chen, from the pro-independence
Democratic Progressive Party, has refused to embrace the one-China
principle. Beijing, however, has set the recognition of that
principle as a precondition for the resumption of bilateral
negotiations.
The back-to-back visits to the mainland by Taiwan opposition
Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party Chairman James
Soong in late April and early May have given fresh impetus for the
resumption of talks between the two sides.
Following meetings between Hu and the two Taiwan opposition
leaders, Chen said several times he was looking forward to a
meeting with Hu.
Even the radical Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said on Tuesday that
the party is contemplating an exchange with the Communist Party of
China (CPC) on a party-to-party basis. As Taiwan's most vociferous
pro-independence political party, the TSU advocates formal
independence for the island.
But Lee Hsien-jen, director of the TSU's department of policy
studies, recently proposed a review of the party's policies and
attitudes towards the mainland.
In response to the new development, Li suggested the TSU abandon
its pro-independence stance and accept the one-China principle
before contacting the CPC.
The spokesman also announced that Taiwan's small opposition New
Party will send a delegation to the mainland from July 6 to
13.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the victory of China's War
of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the group, led by party
chairman Yok Mu-ming, is scheduled to visit Guangzhou, Nanjing,
Dalian and Beijing.
On the economic front, He Shizhong, director of the Economic Bureau
of the Taiwan Affairs Office, said that by the end of May the
mainland had approved 65,568 Taiwanese-funded projects. They
involved contracted investments worth US$82.76 billion and actual
investments worth US$40.58 billion.
As at the end of May, indirect cross-Straits trade volume was
valued at US$438.18 billion, with the value of Taiwanese exports to
the mainland reaching US$366.67 billion.
At present, the mainland is Taiwan's biggest export market and its
largest source of trade surplus.
Also at the press conference, Tang Wei, deputy director of the
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Department of the Ministry of
Commerce, suggested that fishery groups across the Taiwan Straits
hold talks on resuming fishing labor cooperation.
Beijing suspended cooperation in 2001 because of violations of
mainland fishermen's labor rights by Taiwanese employers.
(China Daily June 30, 2005)