• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Taiwan, China should consider exchanging offices: MAC

ROC Central News Agency

2009/05/09 17:39:17
Taipei, May 9 (CNA) Taiwan would like to open a representative office in China to handle general matters arising from the increasing exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and believes Beijing should reciprocate, an official responsible for China affairs said Friday.

Liu Te-shun, deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan's top China policy-coordinating body, made the remarks after President Ma Ying-jeou suggested that the two sides should consider exchanging offices.

Ma came up with the proposal amid significant improvements in cross-Taiwan Strait ties since he took office last May 22. In less than a year, the decades-long hostility between the two sides has faded noticeably under the Ma administration's reconciliation policy toward China.

If the suggestion were to come to fruition, it would be the most significant event in cross-strait relations since the Chinese civil war in 1949 that drove the Republic of China government across the strait to relocate on Taiwan, according to Liu.

Liu said in an interview with CNA that the MAC has prepared for all kinds of possible developments in cross-strait ties, including the reciprocal establishment of representative offices.

In the first round of talks between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) President Chen Yunlin, which took place last June in Beijing, ARATS proposed that offices should be opened on each side to handle visa issues.

However, that proposal was later shelved because it was not considered the best time for the establishment of such facilities, Liu said.

This April, in a third round of talks, the two sides signed nine agreements covering issues related to regularly scheduled direct cross-strait flights, joint efforts on cracking down on crime, and financial cooperation.

The accords also touch on plans for different Taiwanese authorities to establish communication platforms between them and their Chinese counterparts, Liu went on.

As a result, there should not be any problem with the two sides handling issues through a facility authorized to handle the general challenges that might emerge from the increasing cross-strait exchanges, he noted.

Asked whether the proposed offices will be set up by the SEF and ARATS -- quasi-official organizations established by Taiwan and China, respectively, to deal with cross-strait affairs in the absence of mutual ties -- Liu declined to make a direct comment, saying only that the SEF is allowed to open offices in China under the terms of the Act Governing the Relations between People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.

(By Elizabeth Hsu) ENDITEM/J