Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/21
By: Chen Chia-yu and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 21 (CNA) Taiwan will continue to communicate with China to maintain cross-strait dialogue and contacts, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Saturday.

“The MAC will continue to communicate with the other side of the Taiwan Strait to uphold the mechanism of cross-strait dialogue and contacts,” said MAC deputy minister and spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正).

There have been concerns over whether channels of communication between the MAC and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) — the two bodies in charge of cross-strait policy-making — and the two cross-strait intermediaries — Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS)– can be continued under the new administration led by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).

Beijing has insisted that Tsai’s government accept the “1992 consensus” that underpinned Taiwan-China relations during the eight years her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), was in office, something she and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have been unwilling to do.     [FULL  STORY]