The State Council Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday said it is "very essential" for the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) to open offices on each other's side.
Fan Liqing, spokeswoman of the Taiwan affairs office, yesterday confirmed that ARATS has recently proposed setting up the offices.
"The anticipated offices will help handle issues during cross-Straits exchanges and properly safeguard legitimate rights and interests of the people on the mainland and Taiwan," Fan said.
ARATS and the SEF are respectively authorized by authorities in the mainland and Taiwan to handle cross-Straits issues, and have held two talks each year to discuss cross-Straits affairs since 2008.
Fan said such issues would gradually increase along with the progress of cross-Straits exchanges following the realization of direct air and sea transport links and postal services.
The suggestion of setting up offices on each other's side was first proposed by the SEF in 2008. Media said if the office was opened, it would play a crucial role in dealing with uncertain or complicated factors in cross-Straits affairs.
Fan also said the mainland and Taiwan were preparing for the opening of tourism representative offices on each other's side while the exact schedule would depend on mutual negotiation.
"Tourism representative offices will promote the common development of tourism industries on both sides," she said.
The scheduled target of 600,000 mainland tourists to Taiwan for 2009 has been achieved, and the daily average number of mainland tourists is expected to exceed 4,000 during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, she said.
As for Annette Lu's wish to interview mainland leaders as a journalist, Fan said the authority "had seen" the report without elaborating on the follow up arrangement. Lu was former "vice-president" of Taiwan and a leading member of the pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party.
Using the southern Fujian dialect, which is also spoken by most of the people in Taiwan, Fan wished Taiwan compatriots "a lucky, peaceful and happy new Year of the Tiger" at the press conference.
China Daily - Xinhua
(China Daily 02/11/2010 page3)