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Taiwan sees little hope for cross-strait peace talks before 2008+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TAIPEI, March 9_(Kyodo) _ Hopes for Taiwan and China to reopen talks before 2008 are dim due to strained cross-strait relations, according to senior Taiwan official in charge of China affairs. Joseph Wu, chairman of the cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, said chances for official exchanges have dimmed since December when China spurned Taiwan's wish to send a representative to attend the funeral of 90-year-old Wang Daohan, who was China's top negotiator with Taiwan. "We had expected that the Chinese side would have allowed us to take part in this occasion and extended their invitation, but they didn't," Wu told Kyodo News in an interview this week. "That was when we realized that the possibility of cross-strait official contacts does not exist anymore," he said. Wang, chairman of the quasi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, held an icebreaking meeting in 1993 in Singapore with his Taiwan counterpart Koo Chen-fu, chairman of the island's Straits Exchange Foundation. The milestone talks ushered in a period of reduced tensions between the two adversaries, which split in 1949 amid a civil war and had not had official contacts for decades. Beijing sent two envoys early last year to attend Koo's funeral in Taipei. "It was rude to snub Taiwan's goodwill," Wu said, adding that since last December, "We have not held any expectations for (talks with Beijing." China halted its tentative dialogue with Taiwan in mid-1999 when former President Lee Teng-hui proposed that cross-strait ties be viewed as a "special state-to-state" relationship, which infuriated China. China sees the self-ruled island as part of its territory that should be eventually reunited. It has refused to deal with independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian since he took office in 2000 despite Chen's calls for talks. With two years to go before his second and last term ends, Chen, citing budgetary concerns, pressed ahead last week with his decision to terminate a dormant council set up 15 years ago by the previous Nationalist government to study the unification with China. That move angered China and worried the United States, which called on Chen to unambiguously reaffirm that he is not seeking to alter the status quo. Ahead of the anniversary of China's enactment of an anti-secession law, which created a legal basis for the military to act should Taiwan declare a permanent split from the mainland, Beijing has warned that any moves toward formal independence are doomed to failure. Wu argued that the council and its guidelines were approved by neither Taiwan's people nor its legislature, and therefore Chen's move was just part of the island's democratization process. "China has always been suspicious of Taiwan's democratization process. They should try to understand it from the angle of democracy rather than from their own perspective," he said. Last year, after the law came into force, China invited Taiwan's major opposition leaders to visit the mainland and announced its plan to give Taiwan's people a pair of giant pandas. Wu said the government recognizes China's successful use of "divide and conquer" tactics to deal with the Democratic Progressive Party administration and Taiwan's people. Although the final decision on the gift offer will not be made until next month after the agriculture department studies the matter, Wu said it would be "difficult" for Taiwan to accept the pandas. |