This combination of file photo shows Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, in Beijing Jan. 6, 2015 and Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu in Hong Kong March 9, 2015
The head of Taiwan’s Nationalists reaffirmed the party’s support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met yesterday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.
Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan’s desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and called for more chances for the island to participate in international organizations during the meeting in Beijing.
The unification issue, a stance China holds sacred but which is increasingly unpopular among young Taiwanese, is expected to feature prominently in next year’s Taiwanese presidential elections.
Chu, a former accounting professor and mayor of Taiwan’s New Taipei City, spoke at a news conference following his talks with Xi. No Chinese officials attended the event, a reminder of the culture gap between China’s authoritarian one-party system and Taiwan’s freewheeling democracy.
The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong’s Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.
Relations between the sides 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 Democratic Progressive Party.
While Beijing prefers to deal with the Nationalists exclusively, it has agreed to some degree of official talks between the two governments.
Relations between the two parties “do not entirely equal cross-strait relations,” but are an important component of relations between the two sides,” Chu said.
The two leaders – meeting in their capacity as heads of the KMT and Chinese Communist Party – also reaffirmed their commitment to the “one China” framework that has since 1992 underpinned efforts to strengthen ties across the Taiwan Strait. Under it, the Republic of China, as Taiwan is officially known, and the People’s Republic of China have agreed there’s only one China, even if they hold differing views about what that means.
Exchanges between the sides are laden with symbolism and Chu’s schedule included a visit to the grave of Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern Chinese democracy who is revered by both the Communists and the Nationalists.
In important areas regarding regional peace, economics, and environmental protection Taiwan hopes not only to have “space to participate but also to join hand in hand and together create a win-win situation with the other side of the (Taiwan) strait,” Chu said.
Chu also affirmed Taiwan’s desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China doesn’t want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.
Chu said the island would continue to insist on joining the bank as “Chinese, Taipei,” the name under which it participates in the Olympics and other major sporting events.
Chu’s comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television.
Despite increasingly close economic ties, support for political unification on Taiwan has remained low, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists’ pro-China policies contributed to heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman. AP/Bloomberg
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