China rejects Taiwan peace talks
China today adamantly rejected Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian’s call for peace talks between the island and the mainland, characterising his overture instead as a bid for independence that could lead to disaster.
“Chen Shui-bian claims to want to ease tensions, but his remarks wantonly seek to create separate countries on each side of the Taiwan Strait,” said Zhang Mingqing, a spokesman for the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office. “Chen Shui-bian’s behaviour can only lead to disaster.”
The two sides split amid civil war in 1949. But China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to attack if the self-ruling island declares formal independence.
In a speech on Sunday marking Taiwan’s National Day, Chen urged China to begin peace talks so the rivals can avoid war.
“Because we can’t communicate, there’s a lot of misunderstanding,” Chen said in his address.
Beijing, however, deeply distrusts Chen, who it accuses of pushing for independence with his proposal to adopt a new constitution for Taiwan.
Beijing insists there is only one China – the communist-ruled “People’s Republic of China” – and bristles at Chen’s reference to Taiwan as the “Republic of China”, the island’s name under the former ruling Nationalist party.
Taiwan’s acceptance of the “one-China principle” is required before there can be any talks, he said.
“We have repeatedly called for an early resumption of dialogue and talks across the strait on the basis of the one-China principle,” he said.
Zhang refused to respond to Taiwan’s latest proposal to set up chartered flights across the 100-mile strait that divides the two sides. “We have already talked about this question many times. I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
Zhang later reiterated Beijing’s long-held view that any flights would be a domestic matter for China and would have to be in both directions.
Taiwan responded today by repeating the Taiwanese leader’s call for the rivals to shelve their political disputes and discuss less controversial issues, just as they did in 1992 when their envoys held an ice-breaking meeting in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong discussions led to a series of meetings which broke down in 1999 amid new disagreements about Taiwan’s political status.
