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China, Taiwan talks begin |
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In a dramatic thaw in tensions between the two rivals, China and Taiwan have started talks that have remained suspended for over a decade. The talks began in Beijing on June 1 and will end on June 14. They will mainly focus on establishing direct charter flights between the two sides as well as allowing tourists on the mainland to travel to Taiwan.
There are currently no regular scheduled flights between the mainland and self-governing island of Taiwan, with only a few chartered flights on holidays. Tourists from the mainland are also limited.
The official invitation for talks came a day after Chinese President Hu Jintao met the head of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang Party, Wu Poh-hsiung, in Beijing – the highest-level contact since China and Taiwan split in 1949. The Kuomintang’s defeat of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan presidential polls in March has led to the easing of tensions. Ma Ying-jeou, who was sworn in as President last week, has taken a much more conciliatory approach with China than his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence rhetoric angered the mainland’s Communist leadership.
In a letter, the Chinese Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait said, the talks would be based on the so-called “1992 consensus”. That was a guideline for talks that the mainland and Taiwan reached in 1992 in which each side could interpret the term “One China” in its own way. Based on that agreement, China and Taiwan held a landmark dialogue in 1993 in Singapore but the talks broke off in the 1990s amid bitter acrimony between Beijing and Taipei.
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