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Letters | Former Taiwanese leader’s visit to mainland China is a trip for peace
- Readers discuss the significance of the former Taiwanese leader’s trip to the mainland, and recent achievements of Chinese diplomacy
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Former Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to mainland China, which began on Monday, is a historic event. It is the first time a current or former leader of Taiwan has visited the mainland since 1949. Ma is set to visit several cities on the mainland, including Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Chongqing and Shanghai.
The motives behind Ma’s visit are markedly distinct from those of Taiwan’s incumbent leader, Tsai Ing-wen, whose scheduled stopovers in the United States have triggered apprehension about cross-strait tensions. There are also those who believe that Ma’s visit has helped to ease the tensions surrounding Tsai’s trip.
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While mainland China welcomes initiatives that foster cross-strait relations, it unequivocally opposes actions that impede such progress. Therefore, Ma’s visit is neither expected, nor likely, to soften the mainland’s countermeasures in response to Tsai’s trip.
Yet, Ma’s efforts to bridge the cultural divide between the mainland and Taiwan are crucial, given Taiwan’s gradual drift away from the mainland in terms of culture and identity.
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He is seizing the occasion of the Ching Ming Festival to visit his ancestral homeland and pay his respects to his ancestors. By visiting several cities of cultural and historical significance, he also seeks to convey a sense of the shared historical and cultural heritage of the mainland and Taiwan.
Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing serves as a subtle yet powerful reminder that people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same revolutionary ancestors.
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