Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-16
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

Taiwan’s top mainland policy official said before concluding his three-day

Andrew Hsia, center, poses with students at the Taiwan Businessmen’s Dongguan School, Oct. 15. (Photo/Lai Hsiang-ju)

visit to China on Thursday that he and his Chinese counterpart had agreed that institutionalized negotiations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait must not be disrupted for any reason.

Emphasizing the importance of official contacts, Andrew Hsia said his visit “definitely will not be the last” that a Taiwan official at his level makes to China.

The head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) was responding to a media question if he thinks he will be the last MAC head to visit China, since the Democratic Progressive Party appears poised to return to power in Jan. 16’s presidential and legislative elections. Beijing dislikes doing business with the DPP, which has traditionally advocated Taiwanese independence, though the party’s leader and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen has pledged to maintain the cross-strait status quo if elected.     [FULL  STORY]