‘SNEAKY AND SECRETIVE’:The Presidential Office brushed off criticism by the DPP, saying when in office it also sought a meeting and that 80% of the public support it

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 05, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Saturday’s planned meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aimed at consolidating cross-strait peace and the “status quo,” and does not involve election-motivated political machinations or backroom deals, Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen (陳以信) said yesterday.

“President Ma is no longer chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] and has distanced himself from party affairs. The aims of the Ma-Xi meeting are to strengthen peace and the ‘status quo’ across the Taiwan Strait, for the sake of the public interest and the future development of cross-strait ties,” Chen said.

Chen made the remarks less than a day after he confirmed reports of a planned meeting in Singapore on Saturday — only after the Chinese-language newspaper Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) broke the news in an exclusive story published late on Tuesday evening.     [FULL  STORY]