WHAT AGREEMENT?Chen Deming said negotiations on a trade in goods agreement have been completed, but a Taiwanese official said that ‘no progress’ has been made

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 07, 2016
By: Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNA

China would continue dialogue with president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration on the basis of “peaceful development” and “familial affinity,” and if the party rejects independence, China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) said yesterday.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not make any direct contact with the DPP for party-to-party talks unless the DPP renounces Taiwanese independence, Chen added.

Chen made the remarks at an ARATS news conference held to clarify Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) statements in Beijing on Saturday to a meeting of Shanghai legislators of the Chinese National People’s Congress, which contained pointed references to the so-called “1992 consensus” and warnings against Taiwanese independence.

The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed understanding reached during cross-strait talks in 1992 that Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.

Chen said that Xi’s comments were “a coherent narrative” that “remains consistent” with the Chinese government’s previous stance on the “1992 consensus,” and that the remarks were “necessitated” by the “current and extraordinarily critical period of cross-strait relations” that require “a full, precise and clear reiteration of the issue.”     [FULL  STORY]