Want China Times
Editorial
Date: 2015-04-12
A regular forum between Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China that
KMT honorary chair Wu Po-hsiung, center, and then head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Wang Yi, right, attend the closing ceremony of the 8th Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum in Harbin, July 29, 2012. (File photo/Wu Jui-ta)
was originally postponed will be held on May 3.
The forum, formerly named the “Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum,” was launched in 2005 and has been held annually since then to discuss major issues related to cross-strait trade, economic and cultural relations.
Some of the consensuses reached at the forum have been put into practice, such as China’s opening to Taiwan-grown fruit and Taiwanese students paying the same tuition as local students.
The two political parties were supposed to hold the 10th forum in 2014, but as Taiwan was preparing for local government elections on Nov. 29, the timing of the often controversial meeting was not deemed politically expedient for the KMT, which lost heavily anyway, forcing President Ma Ying-jeou to step down as the party’s chair, and the forum was set aside for a while. [FULL STORY]
