BEIJING: The Chinese mainland on Sunday rolled out a package of 10 policies and measures – spanning inter-party communication, infrastructure, travel, trade and culture – aimed at boosting exchanges and cooperation with the Taiwan region.
The announcement by the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee followed a meeting earlier this week between Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party, the first such top-level meeting between the two political parties across the Taiwan Strait in a decade.
Invited by the CPC Central Committee and Xi, Cheng led a KMT delegation on a six-day visit to mainland cities including Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing, which concluded on Sunday.
At the top of the 10 initiatives announced by the mainland on Sunday is a proposal to explore a regular communication mechanism between the CPC and the KMT.
The CPC and the KMT will, on the common political foundation of adhering to the 1992 Consensus and opposing “Taiwan independence,” take “stronger measures” to promote cross-Strait exchanges, interaction and integration, the CPC’s Taiwan Work Office said in a statement.
The Taiwan question is a scar left over by a full-blown civil war fought between the forces led by the CPC and the KMT about eight decades ago. In 1949, the remnants of the defeated KMT retreated to the Taiwan region, and the People’s Republic of China was founded under the leadership of the CPC.
The unresolved civil war and foreign interference have left the two sides of the strait in a prolonged state of political confrontation.
However, the fact that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory has never changed.
The latest policies and measures, according to the statement, aim to advance the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and enhance the kinship and well-being of compatriots across the strait.
The statement said that an institutionalized platform will be set up to promote two-way exchanges between young people on both sides of the strait. The All-China Youth Federation and other relevant mainland institutions will invite 20 youth groups from Taiwan to visit the mainland for exchanges every year. –The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
