Beijing warms up to Taipei’s mayor
Mainland’s top Taiwan affairs official tells visiting Ko Wen-je that anyone who respects the 1992 consensus can be part of a better cross-strait relationship
The mainland’s top official for Taiwanese affairs, Zhang Zhijun, on Monday told visiting Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je that Beijing was willing to reach out to any party in Taiwan as long as they had the right attitude towards cross-strait relations.
Specifically, Zhang said exchanges could only be conducted with those who accepted the 1992 consensus – an understanding that there is only one China but that each side can interpret what “China” means.
Zhang made the comment during his first meeting with Ko, who ran for mayor as an independent, as he wrapped up a three-day visit to Shanghai, where he attended an annual forum involving Taipei and Shanghai. The meeting was one of the highest-level exchanges between the two sides amid their current strained relations, and was seen by analysts as a bid by Beijing to break the current cross-strait deadlock.
In response, Ko asked Zhang to respect the different voices within Taiwan, according to the island’s Central News Agency.
The mainland was trying to engage heads of Taiwan’s local governments in a bid to increase pressure on the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), analysts said. Beijing has suspended talks and exchanges with Taipei since a month after Tsai took office in May last year and then refused to accept the 1992 consensus or the one-China principle.
