Taipei calls for dialogue rejected as insincere
( 2002-02-27 11:02 ) (3 )

Beijing Tuesday poured cold water on Taipei's calls for renewed dialogue, saying that the basic conditions must be right before cross-Straits talks can be resumed.

The refusal came after both Taiwan's so-called "president" Chen Shui-bian and "premier" Yu Shyi-kun called for exchanges between Taiwan and mainland envoys.

Chen urged Beijing to agree to bilateral official visits to help jump-start stalled talks to ease political and economic differences.

During a teleconference address to Asian studies students and professors at Harvard University in the United States, Chen said he was willing to send representatives to the mainland or welcome Chinese mainland visitors to Taiwan.

In his first "state-of-the-nation" address delivered Tuesday to the "Legislative Yuan", Yu said. "We suggest envoys from the two sides exchange visits and have a wide-ranging exchange of views on issues of mutual concern."

The renewed call came following Taipei's reported plan to rename its representative offices abroad, a move deemed as a creeping shift towards independence.

"It is just their own wishful thinking to have the negotiations re-opened without accepting the one-China principle," said an official with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

"It is meaningless for Taipei to repeatedly make such an empty call without the least of sincerity."

The official, who declined to be named, said the Taiwan authorities should first be bent on removing the hurdle to development of cross-Straits relations through concrete actions.

"How can you expect a good interaction between the two sides while you are making every effort to undermine the relationship," the official said, referring to a string of pro-independence moves taken by the Taiwan authorities.

Beijing and Taipei began bilateral negotiations through semi-official bodies in the early 1990s due to an absence of official links.

But the talks between the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and its Taipei counterpart Straits Exchange Foundation have been broken off since July 1999 when former Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui enraged Beijing by unilaterally redefining bilateral ties as "special state to state".

The stalemate has been maintained as Taiwan leader Chen, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has refused to accept Beijing's one-China principle that both Taiwan and the mainland are part of China.

The new Taiwan leader even refuses to recognize himself as Chinese.

"Chen has taken the same pro-independence road as Lee and even outshone his predecessor in promoting de facto independence for the island," said Xu Shiquan, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Xu said Chen cannot be more active in taking concrete steps to materialize the concept of Taiwan independence, aimed at splitting the motherland.

"But as for developing cross-Straits ties, he has always been just paying lip service and playing word games," the researcher said.