Important meetings between Taiwan and China: an overview

focustaiwan.com
November 7, 2015

The 1993 meeting between Chairman of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation Koo Chen-fu (right) and the President of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Wang Daohan (left).

Taipei, Nov. 7 (CNA) The historic meeting between Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is the first direct contact between the top leaders from both sides since Taiwan and China split at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

But it is not the first time that the two former political rivals have discussed bilateral ties. What follows is a brief overview of the important meetings between the Republic of China government and the Communist Party of China (CPC), from 1993 to the present:

In 1993, Chairman of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and the President of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Wang Daohan (汪道涵) met in Singapore April 27-29, which was the first meeting between Taipei and Beijing since 1949.

In October of 1998, Koo and Wang met again in Shanghai and agreed to strengthen dialogue and continue negotiations. The second Koo-Wang meeting lasted for four days.

[Lien Chan (left) and Hu Jintao]

In April of 2005, Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) met with CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in Beijing and they reached a five-point consensus that included restarting negotiations on the basis of the “1992 Consensus,” promoting an end of hostilities and reaching a peaceful resolution.

It was the highest level exchange between the leaders of the KMT and CPC since Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Mao Zedong (毛澤東) met in Chongqing in 1945.

After Ma became president in May 2008, Taiwan’s icy relations with China have begun to thaw. SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) met with ARATS President Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in Beijing in June of that year.

[Chiang Pin-kung (left) met with Chen Yunlin]

Since then, there have been hundreds of direct flights between China and Taiwan every week and millions of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan every year.

The two sides signed an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in June 2010 and relevant negotiations on economic issues are still in progress.

On February of 2014, head of the Mainland Affairs Council Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) met with Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in Nanjing, China. Since then, there have been three similar meetings between the leaders of the governmental agencies of both sides. The latest one was in October this year.

President Ma Ying-jeou met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Nov. 7 in Singapore, a historic summit that the President Ma hoped would pave the way for future regular talks between leaders of the two former adversaries.

(By Kuo Chung-han and Lee Mei-yu)