Commentary

China Watch

Forum Digests

Letters

Toward common goals

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-12 07:48

The resumption of the cross-Straits negotiation today in Beijing will usher in a new era in the history of the relations between the mainland and Taiwan.

Chen Yunlin, president of Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), will talk to his visiting Taiwan counterpart Chiang Ping-kun, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).

The mainland and Taiwan do have disputes, given the island's isolation from the mainland since 1949. That means that negotiations will be long and far from easy.

Nonetheless, they have one thing in common: the pursuit of peace and prosperity across the Taiwan Straits.

The two sides have turned pragmatic when facing the issues. It means that they are committed to seeking common ground on their common goal while reserving differences on major issues.

The pragmatism has made it possible for the two sides to come so close in the past two months. A legion of Taiwan's political heavyweights, including former Chairman of Kuomintang (KMT) Lien Chan and Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung, visited the mainland recently.

While meeting with Wu in Beijing late last month, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao said building trust is important to promoting peaceful development of the cross-Straits relations.

Wang Daohan and Koo Chen-fu, the predecessors of Chen Yunlin and Chiang Ping-kun, inaugurated the first round of high-level talks across the Straits. They reached the agreement on one China with a respective interpretation known as the "consensus of 1992," a sine qua non for the resumption of talks between the mainland and Taiwan.

A Summary of the Wang-Koo Talks published by the SEF in August 1993 stated that the consensus reached by ARATS and SEF was quite clear: both sides had worked hard to seek common points while reserving differences in explaining the political content of one China.

Now, as they resume their talks, the two sides are resorting to the 1992 consensus. Still, the consensus should serve as the basis for building trust between the two sides.

Today and tomorrow Chen and Chiang will focus on tangible steps the mainland and Taiwan can take quickly. They are expected to ink a deal on launching weekend chartered flights and Taiwan's opening to mainland tourists.

The resumed dialogue is a positive development for the cross-Straits relations.

(China Daily 06/12/2008 page8)