Proper respect for differences conducive to interactions: official
Taipei, March 14 (CNA) Taiwan’s top China policy planner said Sunday that it is conducive to healthy interaction across the Taiwan Strait that China appropriately acknowledges the differences in economic scale and systems between the two sides.
Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan said cross-Taiwan Strait relations are unique but complicated, with wide gaps in Taiwan and China’s economic scales.
“We are glad that the Chinese leadership has the same understanding, ” Lai said in response to remarks made by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Sunday that China will make concessions to Taiwan in the “early harvest” list to be included in a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
Lai reiterated that during a conversation in 2008 with Chen Yunlin, China’s top negotiator with Taiwan, she used the term for “mutuality” in Taiwanese to drive home her point.
The Taiwanese often use the term “mutuality” in their daily lives based on the premise that the two sides understand each other and acknowledge the differences between them, Lai said.
As to whether has the second round of official cross-strait negotiations on the ECFA have been postponed to the end of March, Lai said the precise dates for the meeting to be held in Taipei have yet to be finalized.
Meanwhile, Huang Chih-peng, chief of the Bureau of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs who chaired the first round of ECFA talks for Taiwan in Beijing, said both sides strongly want to have the ECFA signed as scheduled.
“The two sides will exchange their ‘early harvest’ lists as scheduled and both are striving toward the goal of having the pact struck in June,” Huang noted.
Huang and Tang Wei, director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Department under China’s Ministry of Commerce, who chaired China’s delegation in the first round of talks, will also be the lead negotiators for their countries in the second round.
Wen said Sunday that the ECFA will be signed based on the principles of “equal consultations, mutual benefit and accommodation of each other’s concerns.”
(By Feng Chao, Yang Su-min and Deborah Kuo)
More Info: http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=182592&CtNode=39
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