Commentary– For the Mainland, People to People Exchanges, Yes; Official Cross-Strait Dealings, No!

 Commentary– For the Mainland, People to People Exchanges, Yes; Official Cross-Strait Dealings, No!

Source: All Taipei Newspapers

Sep. 26. 2016

The United Daily News on September 24 carried a commentary on cross-Strait developments. The following is its excerpt. As the Mainland suspended official cross-Strait exchanges, official Beijing has been trying to change the original communication pattern that used to exist between government agencies for cross-Strait exchanges, as well as that undertaken by proxy organization, i.e., Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF, 海基會) and the Mainland’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS). It is possible that in the future, the Mainland would allow only people-to-people, and people-to-government exchanges, but not government-to-government cross-Strait interactions.          

 During a forum in Jiangsu (江蘇) yesterday on Taiwan industrial transformation, attendees could smell that the Mainland had been systematically reducing all official cross-Strait contacts. Instead, the Mainland would ask that private-sector groups in Taiwan engage Mainland government agencies for cross-Strait interactions.      

 Although the Mainland stressed that all cross-Strait forums and events would be held as scheduled after May 20, Mainland officials did not want to give the impression that official Beijing and Taiwan’s new government had any official contacts. In other words, the SEF and Taiwan officials would not be allowed to participate in cross-Strait exchanges in the future.      

 Chen Demin (陳德銘), head of the ARATS, and Lin Join-sane (林中森), then head of the SEF, had attended previous forums over the past four years together. However, Chen Demin did not attend the forum this year, nor had Tien Hung-mao (田弘茂) the new chairman of the SEF, been invited to the forum because the Mainland did not want to give the impression that there were any direct contacts with Taiwan’s new government.      

 It is note worthy that Rock Hsu (許勝雄), a noted industrialist in Taiwan and chairman of the Taiwan-based Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI,全國工業總會), who currently doubles as one of the three vice chairmen of the SEF, attended the forum. However, Hsu’s attendance at the forum was reportedly a focus of concern to the Mainland. According to an informed source, the Mainland hoped that in the future similar forums would be attended by purely private-sector groups.     

 In addition, the Mainland reportedly would not invite officials from Taiwan’s SEF or the Economics Ministry to attend meetings of the cross-Strait committee on economic cooperation under ECFA or other similar activities in the future.   

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