In SingaporeLeaders of China, Taiwan meet for first time in six decades
The mainland has never renounced the use of force to bring what it considers a breakaway province under its control.
Leaders of political rivals
Taiwan and China met on Saturday for the first time in more than 60
years for talks that come amid rising anti-Beijing sentiment on the
self-ruled democratic island and weeks ahead of elections there.
The talks between China President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou,
the first such meeting since China's civil war ended in 1949, are being
held at a luxury hotel in the neutral venue of Singapore.
Both
men shook hands and smiled in front of a mass of journalists, Xi
wearing a red tie, the colour of the Communist Party, and Ma a blue one,
the colour of his Nationalist Party.
Moving into a
meeting room, Xi, speaking first and sitting opposite Ma, said Chinese
people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait had the ability and wisdom
to solve their own problems.
"No force can pull us apart," Xi said. "We are one family."
In
response, Ma said he was determined to promote peace across the Taiwan
Strait and that relations should be based on sincerity, wisdom and
patience.
Ma also asked Xi indirectly to respect Taiwan's democracy.
"Both sides should respect each other's values and way of life," he said.
China's
Nationalists, also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), retreated to Taiwan
after losing the civil war to the Communists, who are still in charge in
Beijing.
The mainland has never renounced the use of force to bring what it considers a breakaway province under its control.
The
meeting comes ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections on
Taiwan which the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
is favoured to win, something Beijing is desperate to avoid.
While
bilateral trade, investment and tourism have blossomed - particularly
since Ma and his KMT took power in 2008 - there is deep suspicion on
both sides and no progress has been made on any sort of political
settlement.
No agreements are expected in what is
seen as a highly symbolic get-together in Singapore, a largely ethnic
Chinese city-state that has maintained good ties with both for decades.
Protocol problems loom large for democratic Taiwan and autocratic China.
China's
Taiwan Affairs Office said the two men would address each other as
"mister", presumably to avoid calling each other "president", as neither
officially recognises the other as head of state.
Further
underscoring the sensitivities in China, state television only showed
Xi's comments live, cutting away when Ma began to speak, prompting a
flurry of complaints on Chinese social media about censorship.
'HISTORIC JUNCTURE'
The
meeting comes as Xi hopes to cement his place among China's pantheon of
great leaders and Ma, stepping down next year due to term limits, tries
to shape his legacy marred by growing anti-Beijing feeling in Taiwan.
"At
this historic juncture of a meeting between leaders from both sides of
Taiwan Strait, we genuinely hope that both sides can show sincerity,
demonstrate goodwill, meet each other half way and confront their
difficulties," China's official People's Daily wrote on Saturday.
While China is laudatory, concerns have been raised in Taiwan.
DDP leader and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen,
in a statement on her Facebook page, said the meeting could only be
considered historic if it was able to express respect for Taiwan's
democracy and that there should be no preconditions for the peaceful and
stable development of ties with China.
"We will
wait and see if this can be achieved. I want to again remind President
Ma that if he cannot do this then the people of Taiwan will be very
disappointed," she said.
Both sides will hold
separate news conferences after a short closed-door meeting, followed by
dinner before Ma flies back to Taiwan later in the day.
"It
will be of huge symbolic importance, but will not be a 'game-changer',
as Taiwanese voters are wary of the mainland's rising influence over the
island", Yoel Sano, head of political risk with BMI Research, said of the meeting.
Ma
will present Xi bottles of spirits made on two groups of islands just
off the mainland that have been occupied by Taiwan forces since the end
of the civil war.
He will also present Xi with a ceramic sculpture
of a Taiwan blue magpie perched on a leafy green branch as a gift for
their first meeting, a bird unique to the island, Taiwan's presidential
office said.Chinese state media said the leaders would eat their dinner at a round table, presumably to avoid the thorny protocol issue of who would sit at the head of it.
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