Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-30
By: CNA
A renowned figure from Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang said on Friday that “someone”
Kao Koong-lian. (Photo/Yen Chien-lung)
had misunderstood a comment by a US State Department official as a gesture supporting the opposition Democratic Progressive Party.
Such a huge misunderstanding could be problematic, said Kao Koong-lian, a former deputy chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), who also serves as a special consultant to KMT chair Eric Chu and the director of the KMT’s Department of Mainland Affairs.
At a Brookings Institute speaking event titled “Taiwan: A vital partner in East Asia” held May 21 in Washington DC, Susan A Thornton, deputy assistant secretary of the US State Department’s Bureau of East Asian Pacific Affairs, commended the firm foundation of dialogue and exchange that has been established between Taiwan and China and that Taiwan, China and even the US have benefited from warming relations across the strait.
She said that the US supports stable and positive interactions continuing across the strait. However, Thornton emphasized that the naming and defining of the content of that foundation is not “something that the US is in the business of elaborating.” [FULL STORY]
