Taiwan DPP heavyweight arrives in Beijing

By chankaiyee2 on October 6, 2012 • ( 1 )

Frank Hsieh

According to Singtao Daily, former Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party chairman Frank Hsieh arrived in Beijing from Xiamen.

He was met at the airport by Liu Junchuan, chief of the Liaison bureau of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and Ma Yuping, Director of Beijing’s Taiwan Office.

SCMP says in its report: “Hsieh visited the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University yesterday for a closed-door seminar with a group of think tank scholars and cross-strait experts, including institute chairman Liu Guoshen.”

However, Singtao says “No politics were talked at the seminar”.

At the question of whether Hsieh might meet CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) Chairman Jia Qinglin, China’s fourth-ranked leader, SCMP says “Hsieh said he was not sure if the meeting would take place. ‘Arrangements are still being made over who I shall meet in Beijing,’ he said.

“Such a meeting would reflect a positive mainland attitude to Hsieh’s ‘icebreaking’ trip, Taiwanese media and observers said yesterday.”

According to Singtao Daily, Former DPP Chairman Tsai Ing-wen yesterday gave her first response to Hsieh’s visit to Chinese Mainland.

She said that it required courage to take that step and hoped that people whether in the DPP or Taiwan community understood the importance of exchanges and that there was no need to attach excessive political significance to it.

In addition, she said she had no plan to visit the Mainland.

Former Kuomintang chairman Wu Po-hsiung points out that he is glad to see Hsieh’s visit to the Mainland. “It is better to go than not to go at all.”

He stresses that the more contacts the DPP has made with the Mainland, the less its differences with Kuomintang.

In addition, he reminds the DPP in all earnestness that the Mainland can never accept DPP’s “Taiwan independence constitution.”