Mainland courting of KMT has hurt the party in the eyes of ordinary people who want their say on cross-strait relations
South China Morning Post
Date: 10 May, 2015
By: Cary Huang
The simmering tensions across the Taiwan Strait over the past year meant the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu, left, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, yesterday. Photo: EPA/KMT
meeting between Xi Jinping, chief of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Eric Chu Li-luan, chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT), on Monday was keenly watched.
But the highest level contact between two ruling parties in seven years produced nothing more than a reiteration of their long cherished “1992 consensus”, in which both sides recognise the “one China” principle.
The meeting came as Taipei and Beijing marked the 22nd anniversary of ice-breaking talks between Taiwanese tycoon Koo Chen-fu and his mainland counterpart Wang Daohan in Singapore in 1993. It also came as they celebrated the tenth anniversary of the historic meeting between former KMT chairman Lien Chan and CPC general secretary Hu Jintao in 2005.
They expected that by building closer economic ties they would strengthen support for the Taiwanese ruling party. Mainland state media used the meeting to chant the praises of the pro-unification KMT and admonish the pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the island gears up for the presidential election in January. [FULL STORY]
