Beijing weighs more Taiwan charter flights
(XING ZHIGANG)
02/27/2003
Beijing may allow more charter flights from Taiwan this year during such holidays as the traditional Chinese Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival to benefit compatriots on the island, said Zhang Mingqing, spokesman with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.The historic implementation of the indirect charter flight scheme between Shanghai and Taipei during the Spring Festival has provided rich experience for the establishment of direct cross-Straits air links, he told a regular press conference yesterday. He urged Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian to honour his pledge to push for the realization of two-way and direct transport links between Taiwan and the mainland. This would conform to the wide interests of people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, he said. Six Taiwanese airlines operated a total of 16 charter flights to and from the mainland for the first time in 54 years between January 26 and February 10, but they had to stop in Hong Kong or Macao, before continueing the journey. The landmark programme was considered an initial step forward towards the opening-up of the three direct links - trade, transport and postal services - across the Straits. The DPP administration led by Chen has been dragging its feet on lifting the decades-old ban on the three links, citing security concerns. Zhang yesterday also ruled out the possibility of resuming semi-official talks across the Taiwan Straits because of the island's refusal to accept the one-China principle. No contact has been planned so far this year between top envoys from the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and its island counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). He was responding to earlier Taiwanese media reports that ARATS Chairman Wang Daohan might meet his Taiwanese counterpart, Koo Chen-fu, at a Singaporean event in April. Wang and Koo were expected to meet for the first time in five years while attending the event organized by the East Asia Institute of the National University of Singapore to mark the 10th anniversary of their first talks, it was reported. Zhang, however, said Wang has decided not to attend the commemorative event. "As far as we know, Chairman Wang does not have any plan to go to Singapore (to attend the event)," Zhang said. Wang and Koo held their first meeting in Singapore 10 years ago, a rare high-level cross-Straits contact that signalled a major progress in bilateral relations. They last met in 1998 when Koo visited Beijing and Shanghai. But the talks were broken off in 1999 after former Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui introduced his notorious "two states" theory on July 9, 1999, which defines cross-Straits relations as a state-to-state relationship. Wang's planned visit to the island was also cancelled. Established on December 16, 1991, ARATS has fulfilled the role of engaging in talks with SEF in the absence of official links between Beijing and Taipei. The mainland has the utmost sincerity and kindness in restarting cross-Straits dialogue on the basis of the one-China principle and 1992 consensus, Zhang said.
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