‘Cross-Straits relations will improve, if secessionists are curbed’

BEIJING—Relations across the Taiwan Straits will be stable and move forwards so long as secessionists for an independent Taiwan are curbed, said a mainland official here Friday.
Li Bingcai, standing deputy director of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), made the remark in an interview with Xinhua. Friday was the 20th anniversary of the ice-breaking start of personnel exchange across the Straits.
“Looking back, the cross-Straits relations have gone through a fierce battle against secessionist activities,” he said. The Red Cross Society in Taiwan began to accept applications from Taiwan residents who wanted to visit people on the mainland on Nov. 2, 1987, breaking nearly 40 years of isolation across the Straits.
The breakthrough was made thanks to efforts of people from both sides. The Chinese mainland announced its policy of peaceful reunification in an open letter to Taiwan compatriots in 1979, followed by “One China, Two systems.” The Taiwan authorities ruled by the Kuomintang, or the Nationalist Party of China, decided to allow Taiwan residents to visit the other side of the Straits in 1987 in response to appeals from many families which had been split between the island and the mainland when the Kuomintang lost the civil war and fled there in 1949.
“The development of cross-Straits relations has undergone a remarkable 20 years,” Li said. “The exchange of people and cooperation in the areas of economy and culture have always been active.” Despite political tension across the Straits in the past few years, visitors from Taiwan to the mainland have totaled 45.83 million visits since 1987 and 1.56 million vice versa by September this year.
Meanwhile, 45.09 billion U.S. dollars of investment has come to the mainland from Taiwan and the trade across the Straits has totaled 693.3 billion U.S. dollars in the past 20 years. But progress did not achieve its potential, as the Taiwan authorities kept holding back, Li said.
And the Taiwan authorities headed by Chen Shui-bian have stepped up secessionist activities in the past few years driven by their own political concerns, risking cross-Straits ties, he said. “Without the secessionists for an independent Taiwan, the two sides would have achieved more in bringing relations closer and smoothing exchanges,” he said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao’s report at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) elaborated the future policy on the Taiwan issue, calling for discussion to end the state of hostility and reach a peace agreement under the one-China principle.
“It is a guideline for our work in the future,” Li said. The ARATS has been working on a non-governmental mechanism of cross-Straits negotiation since 1991 and has held 17 talks with its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), in 1990s.
Bound by the same race and culture, people on both sides are tied together, Li said,” The fate of secessionists is doomed to fail.” “We truly believe that the ARATS and SEF will restore talks on the basis of the 1992 consensus,” he said.—Xinhua