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No firm agreements, but talks ‘move China-Taiwan ties forward’

TAIPEI — Negotiators from Taiwan and China met for talks in an attempt to maintain momentum for the forging of closer ties in the face of a sceptical Taiwanese public.

TAIPEI — Negotiators from Taiwan and China met for talks in an attempt to maintain momentum for the forging of closer ties in the face of a sceptical Taiwanese public.

The talks resulted in no firm agreements, but underscored Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s determination to prove that engagement with China can help the local economy.

Ministerial-level officials from the sides met on Saturday on the tiny Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen, just off the Chinese coast, where the rivals fought bloody military battles in the 1950s and 1960s.

The topics discussed included controlling the illegal excavation of sand from the ocean floor, opening outlying Taiwanese islets to more China-based tourism and letting Chinese tourists make transit stops in Taiwan, Taiwan’s Cabinet-level negotiating body, the Mainland Affairs Council, said in a statement.

“The development of relations between Taiwan and mainland China has been self-evident, and despite bumps in the recent past I want to emphasise this is a development trend backed by public opinion,” council chairman Andrew Hsia said in opening remarks.

Beijing’s representative Zhang Zhijun, director of the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said China was determined to keep ties moving forward. “We absolutely cannot let mainland China-Taiwan relations go backwards again, even less so into the past,” he was quoted as saying by China’s official Xinhua News Agency in his opening remarks.

“I believe this is also the joint desire of compatriots from both sides who have weathered storms of the past.”

The Kuomintang, which currently rules the island, was driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong’s Communists during the Chinese Civil War in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between both sides. Relations began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan’s formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Many among the Taiwanese public fear closer ties could undermine their economic advantages while furthering Beijing’s eventual goal of ending the island’s self-rule of nearly seven decades. China relations are expected to feature prominently in next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, from which Mr Ma is excluded by term limits.

About 300 opponents and supporters of the talks demonstrated outside the meeting venue on Saturday, with one opponent injured in a scuffle.

During Saturday’s meeting, Mr Hsia pointed out that cooperation has strengthened and misunderstandings have diminished under the regular communication mechanism established between the mainland and Taiwan affairs offices, according to Xinhua. He also called for the maintenance and expansion of the mechanism.

Mr Hsia said as both parties on either side of the Strait took lessons from history, they no longer wanted to be involved in cross-strait conflict.

The peace and prosperity of the past seven years has proved that both sides have “turned swords into ploughs”, Mr Hsia was reported as saying by Xinhua, calling on people to cherish the hard-won progress.

The mostly private two-hour talks also covered Taiwan’s potential membership in the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China earlier declined Taiwan’s application to be a founding member of the AIIB, but expressed that it is welcome to participate in the bank in future under an “appropriate” name. AGENCIES

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