Beijing to launch Taiwan charm offensive in wake of protests

Beijing is seeking to woo Taiwanese students by planning more cross-strait youth exchanges following a three-week student-led protest in Taiwan recently against a trade service pact with the mainland.

Fan Liqing, a spokeswoman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a press conference in Beijing yesterday that mainland authorities had closely watched the developments in Taiwan as a student-led protest broke out at the island's parliament on March 18.

"We have long encouraged more exchange activities among students on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and are willing to provide more aid in this area so that young people on both sides can increase their understanding of actual developments in cross-strait relations," Fan said.

At a separate event in Beijing yesterday, Yu Zhengsheng, the Communist Party's top official overseeing cross-strait relations, called on a group of visiting Taiwanese labour union leaders to support cross-strait economic co-operation, Xinhua reported.

But it was the student-led protest's potential to reverse a warming trend in cross-strait relations that has grabbed Beijing's attention.

Claiming the trade service pact would result in the loss of thousands of jobs and endanger the self-governed island's democracy, some 200 Taiwanese students stormed the legislative chamber to block a review of the pact - a reciprocal agreement to open Taiwan and the mainland's service sectors to each other.

At the height of the protest, some 500,000 residents demonstrated outside the office of mainland-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou to demand the withdrawal of the pact.