Nikkei Asian Review
By: DEBBY WU, Nikkei staff writer

KINMEN, Taiwan — A senior Taiwanese official on Saturday told his Chinese counterpart that Beijing should respond to the island’s concerns over a new security threat China seems to have posed.

Zhang Zhijun, left, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, and Andrew Hsia, minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, discussed various economic issues on the Taiwanese islet of Kinmen on Saturday.

The incident reflects ongoing political tensions between the two sides, even though relations have thawed and even warmed since Taiwan’s mainland-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008.

China has never abandoned the possible use of force as an option to achieve reunification with the island of 23 million. Taiwan split off from China in 1949 amid civil war.

“We have solemnly expressed our displeasure with China’s inclusion of Taiwan in a new security bill,” Andrew Hsia, Taiwan’s minister of mainland affairs, said after his meeting with Zhang Zhijun, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. “However, Zhang told me this has been China’s longstanding and unchanging stance and that ‘the case has been closed.'”     [FULL  STORY]