Former Taiwanese premier Frank Hsieh urges DPP role in cross-strait talks
Frank Hsieh Chang-ting uses speech in Hong Kong to argue that excluded opposition party deserves role in cross-straits discussions
Former Taiwanese premier Frank Hsieh Chang-ting said yesterday that dialogue with Beijing would be more productive if other parties were brought into talks.
Hsieh, the former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, was speaking in Hong Kong at a forum organised by his Taiwan Reform Foundation and the mainland's Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The former premier used the occasion to advocate a greater role in cross-straits talks for Taiwan's opposition party, which has been excluded because of its support for declaring independence from the mainland.
So far, cross-strait exchanges have been limited to the Chinese Communist Party and the ruling Kuomintang, which have grown closer in recent years despite being on opposite sides in the Chinese civil war.
"The political exchanges across the straits have gradually become exchanges between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party," Hsieh said in his keynote address.
"This kind of mindset implies that the cross-strait issue is not relevant to other political parties," he said. "And that means it is not relevant to many Taiwanese people."
The symposium was a rare occasion for high-profile engagement between scholars from the DPP and the mainland, though mainland officials present stressed it should not be seen as a formal exchange.